Poem Post: "a stranger, and afraid"

[minoanmiss]

"in a world I never made"

This one... I drew it because it personally resonates with me, but also because I think it aptly describes the plight of certain groups in our society.




The Laws of God, the Laws of Man
by A.E. Housman
Last Poems XII

THE laws of God, the laws of man,
He may keep that will and can;
Not I: let God and man decree
Laws for themselves and not for me;
And if my ways are not as theirs
Let them mind their own affairs.
Their deeds I judge and much condemn,
Yet when did I make laws for them?
Please yourselves, say I , and they
Need only look the other way.
But no, they will not; they must still
Wrest their neighbour to their will,
And make me dance as they desire
With jail and gallows and hell-fire.
And how am I to face the odds
Of man's bedevilment and God's?
I, a stranger and afraid
In a world I never made.
They will be master, right or wrong;
Though both are foolish, both are strong.
And since, my soul, we cannot fly
To Saturn nor to Mercury,
Keep we must, if keep we can,
These foreign laws of God and man.

Comments

[acelightning]

When I first thought about concepts like this, my immediate reaction was not so much "fear", as it was puzzlement - why do people keep making up pointless and painful rules, and forcing other people to follow them? (Naturally, I got into a lot of weird kinds of trouble as a kid.)

My userpic is, as is quite often the case, a form of meta-communication...

[corylea]

Ooh, your IDIC picture is so pretty!

It's such a measure of who Roddenberry was that one of the most inspiring things he ever created originated as a cynical cash grab. He managed to be a visionary and a jerk at the same time. Because people are complicated, and no one is either all good or all bad...

[acelightning]

Well, Roddenberry was both a Hollywood asshole and a classic liberal hippie - and a very creative mind.

I have no idea where I got that original icon, although it was probably ganked without permission from some long-ago Paramount promotional material :-)

[minoanmiss]

*beams at you*
*beams at your icon*

His fear resonates with me, growing up in a pretty hardcore evangelical church as I did -- as a child I had Hell described to me in detail and was shown movies that wanted to be The Passion of the Christ but didn't have the budget. (When TPoTC came out my parents led church trips to see it.) It's amazing the amount of fear and torture that is supposedly child-appropriate because the subject is Christian and Christianity is assumed by many people to always be child-approrpaite.

[acelightning]

I wasn't exposed to very much hellfire & brimstone, nor gruesome Crucifixion art - I was raised in a form of mainstream American Protestantism that was basically a religious form of Wonder Bread, entirely devoid of flavor or nutritional value. My particular childhood hell consisted mostly of permutations on "Girls aren't able to do that. Girls aren't allowed to do that. You're crazy to even consider it. Sit down and shut up. Don't be so smart. Just fit in." (Not from my parents, though! Just from the entire rest of the world!)

[sabotabby]

This is FANTASTIC.

Maybe it's the shape making me think about this, but have you ever considered that thing that converts digital drawings to embroidered patches?

[minoanmiss]

I didn't know there was such a thing! I AM NOW CONSIDIERING IT A LOT! I could put patches of my art on my and others' clothes, eee!

[sabotabby]

I learned of the existence of such things recently. Well, wait, come to think of it we did some for LARP. But someone posted about it about a week ago and this twigged in my brain as a thing that would be Relevant To Your Art.

[callibr8]

Not only could you do this, but I bet you could set up an Etsy shop for this and start making some real bank!

If I had the budget, I'd underwrite the acquisition of a computerized embroidery machine for this purpose. Alas, I don't... yet. But I'll keep it on my "projects to fund" list, if I ever do manage to buy a *winning* lottery ticket.

[minoanmiss]

I have been staring in delight for a WEEK at this kind, generous, encouraging comment.

Thank you, a LOT>

*huggles you*

[amaebi]

Oh, marvelous and sad.

[minoanmiss]

Yeah. *wry smile*

[baranduin]

This is so beautiful.

[minoanmiss]

Thank you. :D

[lferion]

That is very moving and effective.

[minoanmiss]

Thank you a lot :D

[corylea]

Oh, YEAH!

[minoanmiss]

*blushes*

[vass]

I love the design of this one. It's effective and beautiful. And thank you for the poem. I hadn't read that one before, and I'm amazed and happy that Housman wrote it.

I didn't know he had it in him, given that (tw: suicide, internalised homophobia) his much earlier take on the subject was an admiring poem about a teenager who killed himself for being gay, praising the boy for having the courage Housman himself (in his own opinion) lacked. It includes the line "the soul that should not have been born."

[minoanmiss]

Yeah, I feel as you do on being weirdly glad Housman wrote this after that awful elegy (I remember what poem you mean, if not its title, probably in self protection). I'm glad he finally realized that these stupid rules are unfair, the first step to maybe, possibly, getting them changed.

(And I'm really glad you like this.)

[johnpalmer]

Powerful and lovely. The poem and illustration are nice, too.

(Yes, that was a semi-sort-of joke, saying you are powerful and lovely, as is the art you shared. This is me being subtle - pronounced "sub-tlee.")

[minoanmiss]

giggles helplessly

[minoanmiss]

You are most welcome. :)