<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; min-height: 22px;" class=""><span style="color: rgb(20, 20, 20);" class="">A Brief For The Defense</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(20, 20, 20); min-height: 22px;" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class=""></span><br class=""></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(20, 20, 20);" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class="">Sorrow everywhere. Slaughter everywhere. If babies</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(20, 20, 20);" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class="">are not starving someplace, they are starving</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(20, 20, 20);" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class="">somewhere else. With flies in their nostrils.</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(20, 20, 20);" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class="">But we enjoy our lives because that's what God wants.</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(20, 20, 20);" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class="">Otherwise the mornings before summer dawn would not</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(20, 20, 20);" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class="">be made so fine. The Bengal tiger would not</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(20, 20, 20);" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class="">be fashioned so miraculously well. The poor women</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(20, 20, 20);" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class="">at the fountain are laughing together between</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(20, 20, 20);" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class="">the suffering they have known and the awfulness</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(20, 20, 20);" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class="">in their future, smiling and laughing while somebody</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(20, 20, 20);" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class="">in the village is very sick. There is laughter</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(20, 20, 20);" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class="">every day in the terrible streets of Calcutta,</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(20, 20, 20);" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class="">and the women laugh in the cages of Bombay.</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(20, 20, 20);" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class="">If we deny our happiness, resist our satisfaction,</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(20, 20, 20);" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class="">we lessen the importance of their deprivation.</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(20, 20, 20);" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class="">We must risk delight. We can do without pleasure,</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(20, 20, 20);" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class="">but not delight. Not enjoyment. We must have</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(20, 20, 20);" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class="">the stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthless</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(20, 20, 20);" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class="">furnace of this world. To make injustice the only</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(20, 20, 20);" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class="">measure of our attention is to praise the Devil.</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(20, 20, 20);" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class="">If the locomotive of the Lord runs us down,</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(20, 20, 20);" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class="">we should give thanks that the end had magnitude.</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(20, 20, 20);" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class="">We must admit there will be music despite everything.</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(20, 20, 20);" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class="">We stand at the prow again of a small ship</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(20, 20, 20);" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class="">anchored late at night in the tiny port</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(20, 20, 20);" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class="">looking over to the sleeping island: the waterfront</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(20, 20, 20);" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class="">is three shuttered cafes and one naked light burning.</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(20, 20, 20);" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class="">To hear the faint sound of oars in the silence as a rowboat</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(20, 20, 20);" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class="">comes slowly out and then goes back is truly worth</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(20, 20, 20);" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class="">all the years of sorrow that are to come.</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(20, 20, 20); min-height: 22px;" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class=""></span><br class=""></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(20, 20, 20);" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class=""><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>- Jack Gilbert</span></div></body></html>