Curiosity

Alastair Reid

may have killed the cat; more likely

the cat was just unlucky, or else curious

to see what death was like, having no cause

to go on licking paws, or fathering

litter on litter of kittens, predictably.

Nevertheless, to be curious

is dangerous enough.  To distrust

what is always said, what seems,

to ask odd questions, interfere in dreams,

leave home, smell rats, have hunches

do not endear cats to those doggy circles

where well-smelt baskets, suitable wives, good lunches

are the order of things, and where prevails

much wagging of incurious heads and tails.

Face it.  Curiosity

will not cause us to die—

only lack of it will.

Never to want to see

the other side of the hill

or that improbable country

where living is an idyll

(although a probable hell)

would kill us all.

Only the curious

have, if they live, a tale

I conected with this poem in a couple spots. the first was the "cats fathering litter upon litter" part just because that is what we have alwasy said my cat did before he came to our house.  Our family always says that our cat probably has hundreds of little babies everywhere. i also connected with the part that says lack of curiosity causes us to die. i connected with this because i am not a very curious person. i disagree with this statement because i am still alive and my lack of curiosity will not kill me. it does not cause people to die i think curiosity does. i will live like the dogs who are just okay with what happens to them it is just something that happens and they do not have to ask why just accept it. curious people die all the time because of their curiosity. for example ournalists get themsleves killed all the time due to their stories which are their curiosity's actually i am not sure that really happens i just watch way too much tv and that happens in tv a lot. i do not watch the news so i am not sure if it happens. but i think my point it still valid that people get killed because of their curiosity all the time. so i disagree with this poem but i did like it. the way it is put it very beautiful and i wish i could write like that. especially the last line "only the curious have, if they live, a tale" i do not like the implacation that it is necassary to be curious to live but it is worded well. i think that means that the author is a very good writer because i strongly disagree with the words but i appreciate the way they are laid out.

Ethics

Ethics

Linda Pastan
(b. 1932)

In ethics class so many years ago
our teacher asked this question every fall:
if there were a fire in a museum
which would you save,  a Rembrandt painting
or an old woman who hadn’t many
years left anyhow?  Restless on hard chairs
caring little for pictures or old age
we’d opt one year for life, the next for art
and always half-heartedly.  Sometimes
the woman borrowed my grandmother’s face
leaving her usual kitchen to wander
some drafty, half-imagined museum.
One year, feeling clever, I replied
why not let the woman decide herself?
Linda, the teacher would report, eschews
the burden of responsibility.
This fall in a real museum I stand
before a real Rembrandt, old woman,
or nearly so, myself.  The colors
within this frame are darker than autumn
darker even than winter – the browns of earth,
though earth’s most radiant elements burn
through the canvas.  I know now that woman
and painting and season are almost one
and all beyond saving by children.


I cannot believe that anyone would chose to save a painting over a woman. i do not care how old she is or if she dies one second after they get her out of the building because human life is more important than a painting. No matter who painted i and that he is dead it is just a painting. The old woman is living and breathing and has a family or friends who care about her. Think of going to your grandmothers funeral and then a woman walking up to you and saying "i am really sorry but the Rembrandt was just more important than your grandmothers life." I just cannot fathom anyone choosing a painting over anyone's life. There are reprints of every famous painting that look the same but a picture of  a woman would not suffice. I do not understand the last line though. "I know now that woman
and painting and season are almost one
and all beyond saving by children."
What does that mean?