In memory of Iris.(Iris Young Marion)

The Iris I knew, the Iris I know, is the Iris who is not physically here with us, the Iris who had and who still has the power to draw us together and keep us together. It is this power of drawing us together that I want to talk about, and it is the power that for me defines what she was and what she is. I will call this a bio-power for it enlivens those it comes into contact with. It is a power that is deeply pervaded by a sense of social justice. Here are words that are the site and the voice of this power:

 
   One day 
   the apolitical 
   intellectuals 
   of my country 
   will be interrogated 
   by the simplest 
   of our people. 
 
   They will be asked 
   what they did 
   when their nation died out 
   slowly, 
   like a sweet fire 
   small and alone. 
 
   No one will ask them 
   about their dress, 
   their long siestas 
   after lunch, 
   no one will want to know 
   about their sterile combats 
   with the "idea 
   of the nothing." 
   No one will care about 
   their higher financial earning, 
   They won't be questioned 
   on Greek mythology 
   or regarding their self disgust 
   when someone within them 
   begins to die 
   the coward's death 
 
   They will be asked nothing 
   about their absurd 
   justifications 
   born in the shadow 
   of the total lie 
 
   On that day 
   the simple men will come, 
   those who had no place 
   in the books and poems 
   of the apolitical intellectuals, 
   but daily delivered 
   their bread and milk, 
   their tortillas and eggs, 
   those who mended their clothes, 
   those who drove their cars, 
   who cared for their dogs and garden 
   And worked for them and they'll ask: 
   "what did you do when the poor 
   suffered, when tenderness 
   and life 
   burned out in them?" 

These are words I encountered in the 1970s--words written by Otto Rene Castillo of Guatemala. I found them in a 1971 volume of Cross Currents. I have kept these words as a part of my superego, to warn me when the intellect seduces me into embracing a life that is oblivious of the suffering of fellow human beings. On that ...