Sunday, January 12, 2014

Dear Edward Snowden



 (a letter, a poem)
 
Here’s what I know about art: art is something we (people) make. Decisions are something we (people) make as well. Edward Snowden made some important decisions. Edward Snowden made some good decisions. But what makes good art?

Unveiling. Deliberateness.
I am talking about art. I am talking about you, too, Edward Snowden.

For your deliberateness may not save us but may lead us toward something
we might call salvation.
We might also call it hope.

Traitors are those who do not love enough to swallow themselves.
Traitors are those who do not speak the truth in order to avoid living in airports.
Wikipedia offers me a list of people who have lived in airports.
I would like to offer you, here, a list of what your truth may make possible:

            Difficulty, that is to say, dialogue.
            Refusal, that is to say, recognition.
            Absolution, that is to say, absence of the absolute.

Your questions appear in the form of statements, but they are questions nonetheless.
Your questions need not be answered so much as repeated.
I would like, however, to answer one, here. You say,
I do not expect to see home again.
But you are home. You are always home. It just that
the essence, the very being, of home
            will never be the same. Nonetheless
you are welcome. You are welcome here and everywhere
that is the home you have helped make
            possible.
This is not your end.
May you always be home.

PS: Also,
you have made the idea of flying sexy again.