Permeable Membrane

A portmanteau is one those small suitcases doctors carried for house calls. The two sides close in the middle. Metaphorically, two meanings merge into one word. From that came the word brunch and Brexit and even this new-fangled thing called a blog (web log)….the formation of a new term from two others.

We live in an age marked by the coming together of variants. It must be tough for those sentinels at the gate (sufferin' succotash) who think in categories. Column A has merged with Column B. You can now have both the Moo Shu and the Sweet & Sour Pork. Life isn’t vanilla or chocolate anymore. I’ll have the tutti-frutti praline parfait black mountain fudge ripple. It’s both sunny and raining. The music is fusion. Corn and cars are hybrid. The census form has a place for mixed race. Tangelo, anyone?

Now I'm going to stake out a position sure to lose me some friends. Borders are constructs of cartographers, porous as a permeable membrane.

In a few years equatorial regions might become uninhabitable. Great migrations are likely to happen because of our denial and neglect regarding climate change. The numbers at our border now are a mere trickle relative to what lies ahead. Tear down that wall, Mr Gorbachev, said Ronald Reagan. The smartest words that ever came out of his mouth. I wonder who wrote them. We have no more use for partitions in geo-politics than we do in literature. 

Don’t fret when the autobiography is part fiction because most fiction is really autobiographical. Everyone has a narrative ... or two… and if certain events don’t quite fit that is easily remedied. Embellish. After all, it happened to somebody. 

Some of my blogs are plagiarized ... from myself. Scraps of my poems have been folded into paragraphs. I’m thinking of having my poet self sue my blogger self and settle out of court for a quarter of a million bucks.

There are instances when my poetry is carefully ruined prose (Kurt Vonnegut’s phrase). Who really cares, as long as the language is fresh, authentic and transformational? On the other hand great poetry is in the realm of music. Not because it rhymes or sets your toe tapping but rather because it has a lift, cannot be articulated with any other words and warrants return visits.

Homer was said to be blind and didn’t write. He told his story. It got worked over from lips to ears. And besides, there probably was a committee of  Homers. Relax, good poetry should leave us unsettled. Being an allegory makes it no less profound. Homer hit a home run when he had Odysseus run around the bases and slide home, besting the opposing suitors while Penelope unraveled with infinite patience.

Migratory birds are all undocumented. We came here uninvited, killed our hosts and never left. How will Millennials receive their Social Security in a shrinking work force? The answer may lie with our immigrant population. North Africans pay for the French pensions and Turks for Germans.

Eventually the world population will conflate into one undifferentiated race. Everyone will be beautifully mocha without losing our individuated self. Who we are is less a function of skin than it is of what shirt we may be wearing. At least our clothes are a matter of choice and make a statement. It won’t happen by next Thursday or the week after that.

It is natural to resist change. We cling to the safe and familiar within imaginary  borders. Gimme that old time religion, one day and the next day, Don't fence me in. Even as tribalism hangs on as a vestige of ancient times we have also woken up to the imperative of universalism. Centripetal and centrifugal forces create great sparks.