Raven 38: Make Sense

If practice does you good, then wouldn't practice make you more good -- i.e., better -- than people who don't practice? Unless maybe those others just naturally have the virtues that we who practice are trying to acquire? That must be it. We're the remedial class, trying to catch up with those others who are perfectly beautiful and wonderful without having to practice. Even so, those others occasionally need some inspiration. How can we help provide them with some? Just try to be a sensible turkey.

Case

One evening Raven took her perch on the Assembly Oak and said, "I worked with Jackrabbit Roshi for a long time, and there were certain things in his teaching that troubled me. I never asked about them, and finally I just came to the end and left. I think now that if I had spoken up sooner, it might have helped us both. So now I would ask you, is there anything in our program that troubles you?"
There was a long silence. Finally Turkey, a visitor that evening, spoke up. "I've been wondering," she said, "why it is that you don't have more songbirds in your community."
Raven said, "Maybe they're content just to inspire us from the trees."
Turkey asked, "How can they be inspired?"
Raven said, "Make sense."

Verse

Theirs to sing, flash color, beyond all sense.
Ours to plod, grind,
Justify our margins, rationalize our punctuation.
These too are pretty gifts, and we give them
As the finch gives hers.
Even so.
Is not this specialization an affront
To both song and reason?

Case by Robert Aitken; introduction and verse by Meredith Garmon

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