(sorry to new followers from my other post today; if you don't like poetry you might want to consider unfollowing or unsubscribing or muting a tag)
As a man, I liked 'Guardian'. You told me you would protect me
but I see bits of your armor flying overhead
in the beaks of eagles.
They have pecked out your eyes
and you still pretend to describe the sunset. I'm very much not into a lot of the traditional gender roles (man must guard/save the woman, be the sole provider) that subvert the independence and autonomy of women via ceding power to the man. Dunno. Just has never been my thing. Funnily enough, I ended up marrying an awesome girl who happens to be extremely independent and autonomous, yet still really buys into a lot of very traditional ideas about the roles of men and women. She definitely sees the man as the protector and provider (yet she owns her own business and pays her own way, etc). She really kind of walks the line and I'm often surprised when I see her embrace tradition so strongly because she is so progressive at the same time. The reason this poem strikes a chord with me has to do with what I mentioned above, and also with one of my other favorite poems that I've mentioned here (and at the Hubski D.C. meet up), -Dover Beach by Matthew Arnold. The relevant excerpt is Arnold describing the world to his fiancé on (or around the time of) their honeymoon: Ah, love, let us be true
to one another! For the world, which seems
to lie before us like a land of dreams
So various, so beautiful, so new
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plane
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night. That is but a part of the poem, but the reality is that it resonates because I more or less agree with the sentiment. I don't see certitude or peace, nor help for pain and sometimes I feel all too aware of the destructive tidal forces that swirl around us as humans, -even from my absolutely privileged position compared to much of humanity. So I see waves on our dark plane, and yet I view the role of knight in shining armor with extreme suspicion, yet my wife sometimes ask me to be. I could never describe the sunset, so I just tell her the truth, -that I will always at least try. My effort, at least, she can depend on. I'm likely to place a sword in her hand while I'm doing so though.
Have you read my post on Response Poems? It talks about a famous reply to Arnold, by Hecht - don't know if I've sent that your way before. Here Second paragraph. That sounds like an interesting dichotomy, but if she can make it work, why not? Haha. Life is a scary thing, regardless of your privilege.
I hadn't read it, but I just read Dover Bitch. It's really quite good, but also kind of humorous to me as Hecht is guilty of the same crime he chides Arnold for: Hecht imagines Arnold as using his actual fiance as a prop. Hecht in actuality uses a simulacrum of Arnold's fiance as a prop. It isn't clear if Arnold used her in this way (I assume she read his shit, liked it, and knew what she was getting before she said "yes"), but regardless, Arnold's piece was a reflection on the state of existence and the idea that happiness, security, and all those other goodies needed to be defined and nurtured together. Hecht, however, did use her simulacrum, and was doing so to more or less say "I'm better at knowing what a woman really wants." Arnold was forging a bond with his fiance, Hecht was whipping his dick out. I get that he was arguing that Arnold was really ignoring her needs, but he had to co-opt Arnold's fiance and make a huge assumption to do so. It does not surprise me to learn that Hecht's piece was written in the 1920's.