Happy National Poetry Month, Time to Fill the Air with Music!

On First Looking into John Rawls’ A Theory of Justice

Reading John Rawls is like watching Spinoza

work.  The propositional statements opening

every paragraph distinctly outline a frame.

Then the ensuing declarations reveal the delicate

curve of the lens.   One would expect a coarseness

in the grind of gritty words, a gnashing of gears

in the machinery of technicalities, but the dust

clears with the soft breath of insightful inspiration

revealing a clarity in vision, not simply of the text,

but of the world. 

                                  I imagine Keats “First Looking,”

climbing steep slopes of verdant folios from within

Baruch’s humble chamber, diligently polishing

the mind into a never-ending understanding

resolving the focus of everyone’s spectacular life. 

Garrett Buhl  Robinson

4/2/14