Things We Dreamt We Died For

Flags of all sorts. The literary life. Each time we dreamt we’d done the gentlemanly thing, covering our causes in closets full of bones to remove ourselves forever from dearest possibilities, the old weapons re-injured us, the old armies conscripted us, and we gave in to getting even, a little less like us if a lot less like others. Many, thus, gained fame in the way of great plunderers, retiring to the university to cultivate grand plunder-gardens in the service of literature, the young and no more wars. Their continuing tributes make them our greatest saviors, whose many fortunes are followed by the many who have not one.