Enjoy.
TJB.
A hexagon of six unequal sides
which are connected at the vertices—
—the vertices, which are themselves a part
of our dear hexagon, but which are not
themselves straight lines, yet which contribute to
the whole, like little silences between
the movements in a suite of piano music.
What is unity?
What is diversity?
I have a friend who will insist
that all the music is but facets of a whole,
an ideal music,
the platonic ideal, even—
—the platonic ideal, of which
all those philosophers have spoken
and argued, and presented papers, and formed schools
and indoctrinated disciples, each school
vehemently fighting and haranguing each other,
and publishing, in their journals;
all this is philosophy, and part of the same project—
—and is it not therefore a kind of unity?
There is one
who says she likes music and movies
but who cannot pin down her taste;
and we argue about music,
and we can’t agree about movies.
“We both kind of liked it,” said
one of our local crooners
about Breakfast at Tiffany’s—
—is that a kind of unity?
Because when this one of whom I speak
decries a film, says it has no story, no plot, no narrative arc,
and I, in exasperated rage, say, “But the camerawork!
the light upon the scenery! The pacing!
The slight tremor in the face, the gesture of the hand,
the subtle touches which convey the meaning of the scene!”—
—is that a unity, this mutual discussion
of the fine points of the art,
an art of which we both care deeply,
and of which we are committed to knowing?
“Let’s have some of that cider,”
she says, and then we settle down to another film.
Or sometimes we read in bed, quoting our books to each other—
—that is unity, and that is diversity,
unity-in-diversity,
the one and the many,
of which our pedantic philosophers,
perhaps,
don’t really have anything of value to say at all.
2024