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      May we all serve at your table, meekly waiting

      for your eye, your hand to lift us, your lip to sup.

      The Comics Page

      Their week is black and white, as if they slid

      back every Monday to that wintry scene

      before a technicolor screen had bloomed.

      They’re cabined also in a meager space,

      obeying rules against more room or joy.

      But then on Sunday all their lives are changed.

      The lawns and Blondie’s dress are green as hope;

      the sky above Prince Valiant is pure blue.

      Page after page is spread and packed with hues

      like flower beds in spring, or bowls of eggs

      dyed pink or mauve, yellow or chartreuse

      to celebrate the new red blood of life.

      Tract for Houseguests at the Emperor’s Estate

      Remember always that you do not own the house.

      If this fact causes you to be less careful

      with its structure or its contents,

      you will not be looked upon favorably.

      While you may at decent intervals suggest wiser behavior

      on the part of other guests, it is not your role to expel them.

      The Emperor has better ways of doing so than you do.

      When you are first seated at table,

      your manners will be crude and offensive to other guests,

      as well as to His Majesty.

      This should not throw you into despair,

      but it should shame you enough to learn better behavior.

      Among other things,

      this means never taking food from your neighbor’s plate,

      or drinking from her cup,

      or throwing your bones in his direction.

      If the servants are negligent in serving hungry guests,

      you are expected to rise,

      even from a place of honor,

      and fetch their food yourself.

      Do not be surly in this,

      for the task is a higher honor than the place you rose from.

      Avoid at all costs

      the grave error of

      accepting the Emperor’s hospitality

      without giving it a thankful thought.

      It was given you freely,

      and your freely-given gratitude

      will be a sign of your soul’s health.

      Speak little of yourself.

      There are many others

      better than you who remain silent.

      Four More Beatitudes

      Glory be to God for unsuccess,

      for houses that fall down and jobs that quit.

      They teach us what we’d be without our hands.

      Give thanks for planned societies and fads

      that promise blissful lives then fizzle out.

      Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

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