Sublime

Lewis Hyde portrays gift economies in general: “The only essential is this: the gift must always move”—that is, people must keep passing it on. To treat a gift correctly is thus to “allow [ourselves] to become a channel for its current.”34

The poet needs the practicalities of making a living to test and temper the lyricism of insight and observation. The corporation needs the poet’s insight and powers of attention to weave the inner world of soul and creativity with the outer world of form and matter.

THE LEADEN EYED Let not young souls be smothered out before They do quaint deeds and fully flaunt their pride. It is the world’s sore crime its babes grow dull, Its poor are ox-like, limp and leaden eyed. Not that they starve, but starve so dreamlessly, Not that they sow, but they seldom reap. Not that they serve, but have no gods to serve Not that

I want to argue a paradox that the myth asserts: that the origins, liveliness, and durability of cultures require that there be space for figures whose function is to uncover and disrupt the very things that cultures are based on.