The reason to be autonomous is to stand there, <br />a cleared instrument, ready to act, to search <br /> <br />the moral realm and actual conditions for what <br />needs to be done and to do it: fine, the <br /> <br />best, if it works out, but if, like a gun, it <br />comes in handy to the wrong choice, why then <br /> <br />you see the danger in the effective: better <br />then an autonomy that stands and looks about, <br /> <br />negotiating nothing, the supreme indifferences: <br />is anything to be gained where as much is lost: <br /> <br />and if for every action there is an equal and <br />opposite reaction has the loss been researched <br /> <br />equally with the gain: you can see how the <br />milling actions of millions could come to a <br /> <br />buzzard-like glide as from a coincidental, <br />warm bottom of water stuck between chilled <br /> <br />peaks: it is not so easy to say, OK, go on <br />out and act: who, doing what, to what or <br /> <br />whom: just a minute: should the bunker be <br />bombed (if it stores gas): should all the <br /> <br />rattlers die just because they rattle: if I <br />hear the young gentleman vomiter roaring down <br /> <br />the hall in the men's room, should I go and <br />inquire of him, reducing him to my care: no <br /> <br />wonder the great sayers (who say nothing) sit <br />about in inaccessible states of mind: no <br /> <br />wonder still wisdom and catatonia appear to <br />exchange places occasionally: but if anything <br /> <br />were easy, our easy choices soon would carry <br />away our ignorance with the world-better <br /> <br />let the mixed-up mix and let the surface shine <br />with all the possibilities, each in itself.<br /><br />Archie Randolph Ammons<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/rogue-elephant/
