The Community Had it worked well even once? Can one point To a golden age of good times? Whatever the case, the arms decided at last to seperate themselves. They were not like the others; they had their own tastes and ambitions: pleasures the others could never appreciate. The legs went next, alleging a life of agony within the community. Hadnt they done the lions share of the work, while forced to survive at the very bottom of the human pile? Then the ribs went, the ears went. The lungs extracted themselves and took the heart because they needed a servant...The eyes invite the nose out of long friendship. Kidneys took the liver. Leaving the tongue in the service of the lips, the teeth marched off to their own village. For a while everybody lived peacefully. But then one heard that the hands had always felt abused by the arms. And only the knees, claimed the knees, knew what was good for knees. If the feet felt downtrodden, then what about the toes who left to form a community of ten? And what about the toenails who without doubt understood best what did best for toenails? But after these further divisions, everybody for a short time lived happily. Better not sing if it meant being bossed by the tongue, Better not feel, if it meant being beaten by the heart... But soon came additional discord - knuckles could only be happy with other knuckles, hair built its own hair ghetto, blood oozed in its own private pool. Ponder the final drama of the teeth. How could they have dreamt of life together? Could the molars ever appreciate the true heart of the incisors? Werent the bicuspids destined to live alone? And then the lower began to quarrel with the upper, the left disparaged the right. Stomach teeth, eyeteeth, wisdom teeth, baby teeth! Consider the two canines faced off on a dusty plain, stamping and snarling and beating their chests. - Stephen Dobyns
Posted on: Tue, 19 Aug 2014 21:48:26 +0000
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