Plan B
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Plan B
And so, we are not to be concerned about living – but about living well.
- Socrates, Dialogue with Crito
I watch them settle in. David’s Death of Socrates
on the projection screen. Clashes of colors
like warring teams: a white toga hanging
from a teacher’s shoulder; the blood-red robe
of a servant, who holds out the deadly drink.
An ancient story, someone else’s fight.
And yet, the old man who sits upright
to take the servant’s chalice. The absence
of malice. Gestures like haunting glyphs.
We open ourselves to what ifs.
What if someone you love, someone
who taught you right from wrong; drew
you a map of valleys not yet drawn; rowed
with you on a winding river: the labyrinth
of your young years.
A chance to visualize: a wrestling coach;
a theater teacher tirelessly recapturing
missed lines.
What if this person you love comes under fire.
A mob seeds hatred, until – like trees that burn
too easily – they are cheering for his demise.
Why.
Because he is winning in an art his accusers used to
prize: logic as leak-proof as a Grecian vase. Because
he is gaining fans.
Because they can.
Suppose, like an extended hand, the mob gives
your mentor a choice: Disavow all you ever taught.
Apologize – or hemlock.
They grasp for the extended hand.
Why not sign a pity release? Spare your children
and wife. Surrender – just for the moment –
what defines your life. The boat for escaping
is waiting in the bay. The judges want their take.
What will history say if friends do not
save a man accused in the wrong? Who will
teach virtue if the teacher of virtue is gone?
Scales that tip and sway.
It must have weighed on Crito’s heart
to learn the decision was already made;
to arrive in a drafty cell for a teacher-
student review – so late.
How he misread the old man sitting
on his cot: alone and unafraid.
The question on his teacher’s face:
How much are you willing to trade?
We weave, instructed, heart persuaded.
We leave it – not for the Midterm –
almost certainly for a later day.
And so, we are not to be concerned about living – but about living well.
- Socrates, Dialogue with Crito
I watch them settle in. David’s Death of Socrates
on the projection screen. Clashes of colors
like warring teams: a white toga hanging
from a teacher’s shoulder; the blood-red robe
of a servant, who holds out the deadly drink.
An ancient story, someone else’s fight.
And yet, the old man who sits upright
to take the servant’s chalice. The absence
of malice. Gestures like haunting glyphs.
We open ourselves to what ifs.
What if someone you love, someone
who taught you right from wrong; drew
you a map of valleys not yet drawn; rowed
with you on a winding river: the labyrinth
of your young years.
A chance to visualize: a wrestling coach;
a theater teacher tirelessly recapturing
missed lines.
What if this person you love comes under fire.
A mob seeds hatred, until – like trees that burn
too easily – they are cheering for his demise.
Why.
Because he is winning in an art his accusers used to
prize: logic as leak-proof as a Grecian vase. Because
he is gaining fans.
Because they can.
Suppose, like an extended hand, the mob gives
your mentor a choice: Disavow all you ever taught.
Apologize – or hemlock.
They grasp for the extended hand.
Why not sign a pity release? Spare your children
and wife. Surrender – just for the moment –
what defines your life. The boat for escaping
is waiting in the bay. The judges want their take.
What will history say if friends do not
save a man accused in the wrong? Who will
teach virtue if the teacher of virtue is gone?
Scales that tip and sway.
It must have weighed on Crito’s heart
to learn the decision was already made;
to arrive in a drafty cell for a teacher-
student review – so late.
How he misread the old man sitting
on his cot: alone and unafraid.
The question on his teacher’s face:
How much are you willing to trade?
We weave, instructed, heart persuaded.
We leave it – not for the Midterm –
almost certainly for a later day.
Is There a Final Exam?
This was always the plan. The day and hour,
of course, is out of our hands: Dickinson’s
Carriage Man; Shelley’s desert sand. Imagine
an untethering, a swansong reckoning. No
proofs in stone. Almost certainly, you will be
alone. The location, like an envelope you have
been carrying, will be unsealed – a wakefulness,
or a presence revealed: a man who taught you
to field ground balls in the yard; devotions you
fought and now whose storied part you want
again. Or perhaps in a chance encounter
with a schoolyard friend, a companion
you abandoned for the faster track, the slap
on the back. Our lives a history of what-ifs,
lighthouses somehow missed. The final exam
will not be timed. It will be scored blind.
The final exam will leave you among the living,
taking stock. Finishings all around; ashes still
simmering – and a threshold to cross. Your gift
if you use it, time: Gilgamesh, tunnelling trails
to a city wall; Penelope’s loom and an ever-
unravelling shawl. As for them, so you:
there will be threshold guardians – a forest
monster, suitors – reveals of the anima.
Look these guardians in the eye.
They are barriers to test your stamina.
This was always the plan. The day and hour,
of course, is out of our hands: Dickinson’s
Carriage Man; Shelley’s desert sand. Imagine
an untethering, a swansong reckoning. No
proofs in stone. Almost certainly, you will be
alone. The location, like an envelope you have
been carrying, will be unsealed – a wakefulness,
or a presence revealed: a man who taught you
to field ground balls in the yard; devotions you
fought and now whose storied part you want
again. Or perhaps in a chance encounter
with a schoolyard friend, a companion
you abandoned for the faster track, the slap
on the back. Our lives a history of what-ifs,
lighthouses somehow missed. The final exam
will not be timed. It will be scored blind.
The final exam will leave you among the living,
taking stock. Finishings all around; ashes still
simmering – and a threshold to cross. Your gift
if you use it, time: Gilgamesh, tunnelling trails
to a city wall; Penelope’s loom and an ever-
unravelling shawl. As for them, so you:
there will be threshold guardians – a forest
monster, suitors – reveals of the anima.
Look these guardians in the eye.
They are barriers to test your stamina.
Ethos, Logos, Pathos
Ethos
Because we are different from our dogs that leave
their scent on white fence posts; the raised hind leg,
the pioneering boast. Because we stand upright, wonder
at vaulted ceilings, songs in frescoes: A lifeless man
sculpted in plaster and paint, lifting his flaccid hand to –
what? An animating touch, a spark, self-understanding?
Or a patriarch called to brave a flood, reclining like a
Roman river god, not from too much wine, but from such
a familiar forgetfulness of our limited time. Because we build
pyramids with steps: discernment following the climb.
Logos
Because Athens never really fell. A radiant vase unearthed;
centuries of burnt clay covering its storied face: a ring of epic
battles – centaurs, half-man half-beast at the throat of a cool-
headed Greek. The choice still the same: Nature untamed or
the compass calibrated? The watchful peeling back to the urn’s
Attic shape – not with landscape trenchers, but dental picks.
Precision tools. A slow-moving, pointing trowel, a sieve.
Because of the mindful coupling of powdery pieces: specs
of gold from a goddess’s shield, a warrior’s bones too brittle
to touch. The true story so reliant upon a delicate brush.
Pathos
Because the healer is the wounded one. Chiron, casualty
of friendly fire, Heracles’s poisonous arrow: Sentenced,
in his immortal state to a life of unfathomable sorrow –
A perfect medic for the would-be hero: Jason, adrift
at sea, until a centaur more adrift steels him: Push on,
pass up the Sirens, regain a stolen throne. Asclepius,
protégé, healer celebrity, and yet so alone – except
for the healer more alone: Chin up, the physician’s heart
cannot be helped; tend to your soul. Achilles, fed innards
of boars to awaken a warrior core; to quiet his ego: bear
marrow. Because for the life worth remembering
the cure is an errant arrow.
Ethos
Because we are different from our dogs that leave
their scent on white fence posts; the raised hind leg,
the pioneering boast. Because we stand upright, wonder
at vaulted ceilings, songs in frescoes: A lifeless man
sculpted in plaster and paint, lifting his flaccid hand to –
what? An animating touch, a spark, self-understanding?
Or a patriarch called to brave a flood, reclining like a
Roman river god, not from too much wine, but from such
a familiar forgetfulness of our limited time. Because we build
pyramids with steps: discernment following the climb.
Logos
Because Athens never really fell. A radiant vase unearthed;
centuries of burnt clay covering its storied face: a ring of epic
battles – centaurs, half-man half-beast at the throat of a cool-
headed Greek. The choice still the same: Nature untamed or
the compass calibrated? The watchful peeling back to the urn’s
Attic shape – not with landscape trenchers, but dental picks.
Precision tools. A slow-moving, pointing trowel, a sieve.
Because of the mindful coupling of powdery pieces: specs
of gold from a goddess’s shield, a warrior’s bones too brittle
to touch. The true story so reliant upon a delicate brush.
Pathos
Because the healer is the wounded one. Chiron, casualty
of friendly fire, Heracles’s poisonous arrow: Sentenced,
in his immortal state to a life of unfathomable sorrow –
A perfect medic for the would-be hero: Jason, adrift
at sea, until a centaur more adrift steels him: Push on,
pass up the Sirens, regain a stolen throne. Asclepius,
protégé, healer celebrity, and yet so alone – except
for the healer more alone: Chin up, the physician’s heart
cannot be helped; tend to your soul. Achilles, fed innards
of boars to awaken a warrior core; to quiet his ego: bear
marrow. Because for the life worth remembering
the cure is an errant arrow.
M.B. McLatchey is a poet and writer living, writing, and teaching in Florida. Author of six books, including the award-winning titles The Lame God (Utah State University Press), Smiling at the Executioner (Kelsay Books), and Beginner’s Mind (Regal House), M.B. is Florida Poet Laureate for Volusia County. She earned her graduate degree in Comparative Literature at Harvard University and teaches classical literature at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. Her poetry, published nationally and internationally, has won several awards including the American Poet Prize. M.B. is currently working on a collection of poems that unveils the enterprise of teaching and learning. Visit her at: www.mbmclatchey.com