When I landed in the republic of conscience
\nit was so noiseless when the engines stopped
\nI could hear a curlew high above the runway.
\nAt immigration, the clerk was an old man
\nwho produced a wallet from his homespun coat
\nand showed me a photograph of my grandfather.
\nThe woman in customs asked me to declare
\nthe words of our traditional cures and charms
\nto heal dumbness and avert the evil eye.
\nNo porters. No interpreter. No taxi.
\nYou carried your own burden and very soon
\nyour symptoms of creeping privilege disappeared.
\nFog is a dreaded omen there but lightning
\nspells universal good and parents hang
\nswaddled infants in trees during thunderstorms.
\nSalt is their precious mineral. And seashells
\nare held to the ear during births and funerals.
\nThe base of all inks and pigments is seawater.
\nTheir sacred symbol is a stylized boat.
\nThe sail is an ear, the mast a sloping pen,
\nthe hull a mouth-shape, the keel an open eye.
\nAt their inauguration, public leaders
\nmust swear to uphold unwritten law and weep
\nto atone for their presumption to hold office \u2013
\nand to affirm their faith that all life sprang
\nfrom salt in tears which the sky-god wept
\nafter he dreamt his solitude was endless.
\nI came back from that frugal republic
\nwith my two arms the one length, the customs
\nwoman having insisted my allowance was myself.
\nThe old man rose and gazed into my face
\nand said that was official recognition
\nthat I was now a dual citizen.
\nHe therefore desired me when I got home
\nto consider myself a representative
\nand to speak on their behalf in my own tongue.
\nTheir embassies, he said, were everywhere
\nbut operated independently
\nand no ambassador would ever be relieved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
When I landed in the republic of conscience it was so noiseless when the engines stopped I could hear a curlew high above the runway. At immigration, the clerk was an old man who produced a wallet from his homespun coat and showed me a photograph of my grandfather. The woman in customs asked me […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[242],"class_list":["post-980","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poems","tag-to-which-we-aspire-to-be-representatives","category-4-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/kuny.ca\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/980","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/kuny.ca\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/kuny.ca\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kuny.ca\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kuny.ca\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=980"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/kuny.ca\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/980\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":981,"href":"http:\/\/kuny.ca\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/980\/revisions\/981"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/kuny.ca\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=980"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kuny.ca\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=980"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kuny.ca\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=980"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}