998

A DIAGNOSTICIAN WITHOUT EMPATHY IS LIKE A MOUSE WITHOUT A CAT

It is daring us to perform. There is a cracking sound
And then the willow tree
Is the scene of a festive dance, some cockamamie
Modernist is sullenly participating
In a fin-de-siecle orgy of exaltation divorced
From the reasonable. It will give her a feeling
Echoing her experience of her parents
So sonorously
Eighty years on we will still be sloughing off
The finickal excesses of her devotees. It does not care.
It exists to absorb our vibes, and so it riles us.