the last bert for a while honestly:song about the good people

Way over yonder in Missouri someone wrestles with a dog as a metaphor for being a good person and it made me think of this, so this is for you Bridgett:

1

One knows the good people by the fact

that they get better

when one knows them. The good people

invite one to improve them, for

how does anyone get wiser? By listening

and by being told something.

2

At the same time, however

they improve anybody who looks at them and anybody

they look at. It is not just that they help one

to get jobs or to see clearly, but because

we know that these people are alive and are

changing the world, that they are of use to us.

3

If one comes to them they are there.

They remember what they

looked like when one last met them.

However much they’ve changed -

for it is precisely they who change -

they have at most become more recognisable.

4

they are like a house which we helped to build

they do not force us to live there

sometimes they do not let us.

We may come to them at any time in our smallest dimension

but

what we bring with us we must select.

5

They know how to give reasons for their presents

if they find them thrown away they laugh.

But here too they are reliable, in that

unless we rely on ourselves

they cannot be relied on

6

When they make mistakes we laugh:

for if they lay a stone in the wrong place

we, by watching them, see

the right place.

Daily they earn our interest, even as they earn

their daily bread.

They are interested in something

that is outside themselves.

7

The good people keep us busy

they don’t seem to be able to finish anything by themselves

all their solutions still contain problems.

At dangerous moments on sinking ships

suddenly we see their eyes full on us.

Though they do not entirely approve of us as we are

they are in agreement with us none the less.

~ by bettyslocombe on May 5, 2008.