<\/p>\n
IN DEFENSE OF LETHARGY<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n I do not understand all these expectations\u2014<\/p>\n neither those that I have of myself<\/p>\n nor those that have been placed upon me.<\/p>\n I am not beast enough for this burden.<\/p>\n I do not see myself as a journeyman;<\/p>\n rather, at best, I\u2019m a reluctant trainee.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Instead of courage, I can boast only of having<\/p>\n the cowardice of my convictions. I did not arrive<\/p>\n ready to work. I came here to take my Sabbath rest.<\/p>\n I find myself unconcerned about which bird gets the worm.<\/p>\n This shirt has a stain; this suit is a mess.<\/p>\n As you can tell, I have not dressed to impress.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I bring nothing to the table other than my lassitude.<\/p>\n Wherever I go, I take a certain pride in my sloth,<\/p>\n whether I\u2019m in Dublin, or Tennessee, or Persia.<\/p>\n Unless acted upon by some foreign (and unwelcome<\/p>\n force) an object at rest will remain at rest. This<\/p>\n is my guiding principle: the law of inertia.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n INTRICACIES OF RECOLLECTION<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n As with each loss we suffer, each<\/p>\n new love functions as a palimpsest:<\/p>\n the way a chalkboard resists complete erasure.<\/p>\n We write the new text over the old,<\/p>\n which may appear or fade out<\/p>\n from time to time.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Like wet cement we are . . . impressionable.<\/p>\n This might simply operate as a function<\/p>\n of memory\u2014not merely a recollection of<\/p>\n the narrative, but emotional<\/p>\n memory, you know,<\/p>\n the sentimental kind.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n For example, when you reminded<\/p>\n me that I had been practicing<\/p>\n poetry without a license,<\/p>\n I laughed because it was funny,<\/p>\n but it also raised the echo of<\/p>\n other, earlier disqualifications.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The mind, without much thinking or fanfare,<\/p>\n writes upon a time-worn script: not so much out of a sense<\/p>\n of economy, but in the way that old dogs struggle<\/p>\n with new tricks. And when our memory encounters<\/p>\n holes or gaps in the story, like an actor who\u2019s<\/p>\n forgotten his lines, we ad-lib the narration.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n We invent the past when it\u2019s not<\/p>\n available, as though we found ourselves<\/p>\n in the witness protection program.<\/p>\n Thus, like a jilted lover, our remembrances<\/p>\n are a bit unreliable. They have their own agenda,<\/p>\n and we can never be certain of their game plan.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u00a9 James R. Dennis, used by permission<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Two poems from the collection Listening Devices<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3813,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[273,30,9,8,64,15,453],"class_list":["post-3814","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-excerpt","tag-lonestarlistens","tag-lonestarliterarylife","tag-lonestarliterarycom","tag-poetry","tag-texasauthor","tag-texaspoets"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3814","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3814"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3814\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3813"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3814"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3814"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3814"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}