<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=us-ascii"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class=""><span style="color: rgb(26, 26, 26);" class="">A Brief For The Defense</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(26, 26, 26); min-height: 22px;" class=""><br class=""></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);" class="">Sorrow everywhere. Slaughter everywhere. If babies</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);" class="">are not starving someplace, they are starving</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);" class="">somewhere else. With flies in their nostrils.</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);" class="">But we enjoy our lives because that's what God wants.</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);" class="">Otherwise the mornings before summer dawn would not</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);" class="">be made so fine. The Bengal tiger would not</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);" class="">be fashioned so miraculously well. The poor women</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);" class="">at the fountain are laughing together between</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);" class="">the suffering they have known and the awfulness</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);" class="">in their future, smiling and laughing while somebody</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);" class="">in the village is very sick. There is laughter</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);" class="">every day in the terrible streets of Calcutta,</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);" class="">and the women laugh in the cages of Bombay.</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);" class="">If we deny our happiness, resist our satisfaction,</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);" class="">we lessen the importance of their deprivation.</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);" class="">We must risk delight. We can do without pleasure,</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);" class="">but not delight. Not enjoyment. We must have</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);" class="">the stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthless</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);" class="">furnace of this world. To make injustice the only</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);" class="">measure of our attention is to praise the Devil.</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);" class="">If the locomotive of the Lord runs us down,</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);" class="">we should give thanks that the end had magnitude.</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);" class="">We must admit there will be music despite everything.</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);" class="">We stand at the prow again of a small ship</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);" class="">anchored late at night in the tiny port</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);" class="">looking over to the sleeping island: the waterfront</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);" class="">is three shuttered cafes and one naked light burning.</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);" class="">To hear the faint sound of oars in the silence as a rowboat</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);" class="">comes slowly out and then goes back is truly worth</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);" class="">all the years of sorrow that are to come.</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(26, 26, 26); min-height: 22px;" class=""><br class=""></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);" class=""><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>- Jack Gilbert</div></body></html>