Zeitgeist
And we are here, as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
While ignorant armies clash by night.
Matthew Arnold, “Dover Beach”
Each day, we find new roads closed.
Evenings now, after jack hammers still, street barricades
are stacked haphazardly, a little jauntily. When the sun
slips away, their orange lollipop lights begin to blink,
not at all in sync, shooting confused instructions
for caution into all the houses on our street.
Days contract for the duration of this disruption.
What age are we in? Gold? Silver? Bronze? No—
Silicon or Microbe. Of social media
and social distance. Of masks and doubled-locked
doors, small panics, and tidier drawers.
Not an age of Oak or Ash. No way is pure
or clear. A kind of Plywood Age, strong
in its way, and useful if—viewed edgewise—
unbeautiful. Insights and erosions laid
in layers like phyllo or millefiori, then folded
into new shape, new tesseractive points
of view. Innocence and Anxiety are commingling.
Something else is coming, cloudy and stormy
as the birth of a star. Perhaps a coalescing,
expanded sense of who we are.
Leslie Schultz
I was reminded this morning that it was the British Victorian poet Matthew Arnold who coined from German the English word “Zeitgeist” or “Spirit of the Age” in order to describe the social unrest of the Industrial Age, the widespread disruptions and erosions caused by a move away from hand tools toward machines, away from pastures and fields into cities. We still have ignorance clashing with insight, of course, because we are humans, but I am grateful to be standing on my particular corner of this darkling plain. I find I am quite interested to find out what will happen next.
We have come to the end of the alphabet sequence but not to the end of the month. Who know what tomorrow will inspire?
LESLIE
Leslie, I’ve been reading your poems all month long, and I apologize for not commenting earlier. I actually have much more work, and all of it online. I am trying to switch off computers when I have any free time.
Loved the poem! Thanks so much for bringing art and beauty at this difficult time!
I love the word “zeitgeist.” It’s just fun to say and has this sort of wobbly definition in my head. So now I know more about its origins. Thanks for that.
Also YOU MADE IT THROUGH THE ALPHABET! CONGRATULATIONS! A MAJOR ACCOMPLISHMENT!
There is much to admire about this poem, Leslie. I’ll never look at those barricades again without thinking about their syncopated blinking eyes! So vivid. And the idea of naming this age is a fun challenge. Plywood Age made me laugh out loud and then swallow – such an accurate possibility – true wood, but not; flexible, but not; seemingly sturdy, but hardly that. Wonderful food for thought. Powerful too.
Well done! The next few days are “frosting.”
Indeed! Shiva dances….
Here, too — one road closes and another … jackhammer lets rip! In the end, it’s all creative, at least, for better or for worse.