Our first selection for this evening is a poetic, platonic, and politic rehash of Dido's "This Land is Mine" from Life for Rent. Ladies and gentlemen, "This Land is Mine" is certainly not about political philosophy, but it certainly should be. It always sounds like an accord offered by besieged to besieger (which it is, but in the romantic sense), and above all an accord with feminist overtones. That will never do, so here's my response.

Sonnet CXXXVI

Bring Sophie, wisdom, here within these walls,
Entice her with a song of sweetest word,
The woman finest, sweetest I have heard.
Drape gate and merlin violet soft with palls,
That she believe the lordship hers, as Queen,
A Queen to rule, to navigate, demand
The folk obey the words of her command.
A pious city wears a great-souled mien.
Our Sophie, wisdom, housed within the gate,
Does nurse the ruler born, that he may rule,
And pushes off the navigator, who'll
Ensure demanders calm when they must wait.
May Sophie, wisdom, reigning as divine,
Know well herself, to know this land is mine.

Love that Dido! I know, it sounds more like something Atobe would write. This time, it's a question of bringing feminine wisdom, that eternal good, into a platonic republic. Much fuss is made nowadays about feminine wisdom and its place in the political order. But in Plato's Republic (2/3rds done reading), the philosophical/ruling and spirited classes governing the city are fundamentally masculine, the proposed equality of women notwithstanding. I posit that the role of the feminine in a just political order, like their role in the family, is to keep the masculine in order and moderate.

Next is a mystical poem, wording transcendence. As readers will know, our Pundit goes to malls to shop for inspiration as often as to shop for manga or a CD. And that was how it was last evening. The scene, in the outer lot, was Caspar David Friedrich's Wanderer above the Sea of Fog made flesh.

























Sonnet CXXXVII

Mid autos, something Fate left there that night,
A wooden signal staff I could not pass,
Sides squared, spike nailed below the yellowed grass,
A touch orange spraypaint near the top. My right
Palm held it. From the island, separate shores
Appeared. Staff at my back I saw, though wan
And dark for all her lamps, a mall, the Swan
Of Solomon atop her lintel. Stores,
Ceramicky and plain, meek, huddled squares,
A fleet of moving vans writ large. Staff side,
A forest, clear and numb. Unreified,
The poles were less despondent sands than piers
I soon was sailing from. New Balance shod,
I left the staff, made middle course to God.