Poetry saving America Day 3 #NationalPoetryMonth

Anne Carson's God's Justice is Tony Hoagland's second (of twenty) listed poem that could save America. Despite much searching, we were unable to uncover any written explanation as to why Hoagland would list this particular work by a Canadian poet as one of twenty poems that could save America. We've been left to our own devices, although Hoagland, in the essay Sad Anthropologists, in the volume Real Sofistikashun, has written about two other Carson poems from her volume The Beauty of the Husband. Hoagland's material there seems of little help here. So we need to look at the content of the poem, the words on the page.

does a dragonfly need "turquoise dots all down its back" to be part of God's Justice?

Photo by J. Harrington

In light of the opening stanza in God's Justice, we surmise that Ms. Carson was inspired by the Book of Genesis, in which tasks followed day by day. On Day

1. God said, "Let there be light"... and, on Day
2. God said, "Let there be a dome in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters."... and, on Day
3. God said, "Let the earth put forth vegetation: plants yielding seed, and fruit trees of every kind on earth that bear fruit with the seed in it." ... and, on Day
4. God said, "Let there be lights in the dome of the sky to separate the day from the night; and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years,
   and let them be lights in the dome of the sky to give light upon the earth."...and, on Day
5. God said, "Let the waters bring forth swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the dome of the sky."... and, on Day
6. God said, "Let the earth bring forth living creatures of every kind: cattle and creeping things and wild animals of the earth of every kind." Then God said, "Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness;"... and, on Day
7. God finished the work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all the work that he had done. 

In the Book of Genesis, a Book of the Old Testament, the first mention of justice arises in the context of the Lord's intentions regarding Sodom and Gomorrah [18:19]. We'd be here forever if we followed that track relative to saving America. Let's try a different approach.

Have you ever been distracted from what you were supposed to be working on by a minor detail that became increasingly fascinating, that took on a life of its own. And then what happened to the original object of your attention? Did it get finished? Was it what you first set out to do? Did it turn out better than you intended? (We readily admit to finding ourselves fascinated by dragonflies. During the seasons when they're around in their mature form, we're easily distracted by them. We're not sure that makes us god-like.)

If we accept one possibility of God's Justice, that justice morphed into the form of a dragonfly, then "God's Justice" becomes an entity which flits about, alighting but a moment here and a moment there, rarely, if ever, staying in one place for long, but it is also an extremely efficient hunter. Could it be that America, like Carson's God, has been distracted from creating the just society it initially intended (See Plymouth Colony vs Massachusetts Bay Colony vs Roger Williams.)? We are still working on it, on a good day. Focusing more of our attention on justice, in all its details, and thus becoming an efficient hunter of injustice, well might help save America. Paying lots more attention to nature wouldn't hurt, either.

God’s Justice
By Anne Carson

In the beginning there were days set aside for various tasks.
On the day He was to create justice
God got involved in making a dragonfly

and lost track of time.
It was about two inches long
with turquoise dots all down its back like Lauren Bacall.

God watched it bend its tiny wire elbows
as it set about cleaning the transparent case of its head.
The eye globes mounted on the case

rotated this way and that
as it polished every angle.
Inside the case

which was glassy black like the windows of a downtown bank
God could see the machinery humming
and He watched the hum

travel all the way down turquoise dots to the end of the tail
and breathe off as light.
Its black wings vibrated in and out.

From: “Glass, Irony and God” page 49

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