In the Next Life, Canto III, stanzas 250-257

So here’s a brief synopsis of his plan:
He visits Darna, just to say goodbye.
He makes his entry into a tin can—
a can, that is, whose instruments apply.

We’ve talked about the trip to pull the pin,
but now he had that episode increase.
He couldn’t leave his womenfolk within
without at least attempting their release.

Again, he asked himself, “Why should I care?
I’ve severed my connection with them twice.
How long they live is none of my affair.
No profit comes this way from being nice.

“Self-sacrifice is only for the faint.
It isn’t rational, so it is wrong.
But there it is, defying all restraint.
I must have been attached to them too long.”

He’d have to find a way to ask advice
of Darna without giving her a clue
that he would make some people pay a price—
a big one, too—for crimes they did not do.

Alas, he never got the chance to ask.
She’d sent him off, though knowing she’d go blind.
He found a note that charged him with the task
of making sure the light of reason shined.

The light of reason? What was that to him?
It sounded like a mystical construct.
She had taught him to pay no mind to whim,
and this was something out of thin air plucked.

It was as though she must on dying leave
posterity what had been in her head,
but logically what would that achieve?
Self-interest is nothing to the dead.

Whose instruments apply: As opposed to a thoroughly unusable carrier, such as the one he had inhabited with Darna.
Episode increase: This has me stumped. The only episode that turned out larger than expected was the sojourn with his family, and since that was entirely unplanned, the word ‘increase’ seems inappropriate. If spending that time with them (presumably some years, if the daughter was old enough to receive religious instruction) gave him a greater attachment to them and complicated his plan, perhaps we can make some sense of this stanza.


©2010 Louis A. Merrimac

In the Next Life, Canto III, stanzas 240-249

“That’s no more rational than all the rest.
My father didn’t know I was his son,
and if he had, he wouldn’t have confessed
to being more involved than anyone.

“The duty that you think belongs to me
did not exist when my genes got their look.
It lived for a short time in history,
but now it’s only in your precious book.

“The only human nature that endures
is not in what we’re taught; it’s in our blood.
The strategy for male apes that ensures
the spread of genes is to be just a stud.

“Despite those reasons, though, I feel an urge
to put another’s needs before my own,
so maybe I’ve more sentiment to purge.
Or is there something else I hadn’t known?

“I’ll tell you what: I’m headed that way, too,
to take my leave before I take my ride.
We’ve come this far; I’ll go one more with you
as long as our directions coincide.”

O, would that we were there to wish them well,
to watch them on their way as they went back,
for when they’ll make it home I can’t yet tell.
To try to tell would take us off the track.

I’ll say this much: Their journey did begin.
They did start for the place they did despise.
Their loneliness and restlessness did win,
assisted by the urge to proselytize.

The other member of this little clan,
though he believed that all themselves should rule,
was finding that he liked to be the man
with three dependent females in his school.

This troubled him the way his feelings had
when he had tried to save his daughter’s mind.
He had rejected all that made men mad
when he had had his motives reassigned.

So when they were within a mile or two,
and they first had the compound walls in sight,
he gave the gals a final adi-yoo.
Without his further help, they’d be all right.

Only in your book: Ciral is ignorant of the Insiders, having no prior contact with them. Even so, it would be quite a leap to assume that family values had disappeared entirely from the planet.
Something else: Remember, Merrimac’s original quest was for an explanation of altruism, a seemingly self-defeating sentiment.
Take my leave: With Darna.

©2010 Louis A. Merrimac