Culture Thursday: Do not go gentle into that good night

The times are dark. But they always have been, haven't they?

We feel the darkness more acutely now, in this time, because, however fitfully, we'd been moving toward the light. And now it feels as if we're careening back into the abyss.

But I will argue that this feeling we all have, all of us reading this blog, is not a feeling of despair and hopelessness. It is one of anger and fury that all that we've worked for, we and our ancestors, is once again being undone. And we rage against this, we raise furious anger against it, because we know we cannot just sit by and allow it to happen. We know that tired as we are we must fight, each in his or her own manner. But we are incensed that battles which we had thought won we now have to refight. And that is on us. Too many of us became complacent. Too many of us thought that the Devil had been destroyed. He can never be destroyed, but only cast back into his realm; we must be ever on guard of his return, for many worship him, his sly promises, his whispering blandishments. His tendrils infest all of creation, for we are a fallen people.

But fallen people can rise up. Fallen people can redeem themselves. Fallen people can make the world anew, and better. For there has never been a perfect people. There has never been a virtuous community. We are all products of a broken world, where tragedies and triumphs ebb and flow, come and go, and we strive to rebuild that which was destroyed.

I don't say this lightly. I don't say this flippantly. I don't say this wearing rose-colored glasses. I'm well aware of the difficulties ahead of us. What we had after the Second World War was a Cold Peace, where the superpower competition kept a lid on everything which has exploded now. I know that it's an even chance that this will finally be the end of us. But I will not go gentle into that good night. My nephew PJ prevents me from doing that. My grand-niece RiRi has her entire life ahead of her. I will not betray them, as weary as I feel, as despondent as I feel. It is the work of our generation to suffer so that those who follow us can live in a better world. I have no other choice.

As you can tell, today's poem will be from that Welsh bard, Dylan Thomas. The villanelle is a damned hard form in which to write. But those nineteen lines, with their repetition, are a rhythm into your mind, a beat into your soul.

Do not go gentle into that good night,

Old age should burn and rave at close of day;

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,

Because their words had forked no lightning they

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright

Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,

And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight

Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,

Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.