William Stafford.2 (On Aristotle)

Humanities Lecture

by William Stafford

Aristotle was a little man with

eyes like a lizard, and he found a streak

down the midst of things, a smooth place for his feet

much more important than the carved handles

on the coffins of the great.

He said you should put your hand out

at the time and place of need:

strength matters little, he said,

nor even speed.

His pupil, a king's son, died

at an early age. That Aristotle spoke of him

it is impossible to find—the youth was

notorious, a conqueror, a kid with a gang,

but even this Aristotle didn't ever say.

Around the farthest forest and along

all the bed of the sea, Aristotle studied

immediate, local ways. Many of which

were wrong. So he studied poetry.

There, in pity and fear, he found Man.

Many thinkers today, who stand low and grin,

have little use for anger or power, its palace

or its prison—

but quite a bit for that little man

with eyes like a lizard.

You know, if there's one thing that I'm okay with winning out over local custom and tradition, it's poetry. In fact, if poetry and art are the more universal elements of a society that balance out the particularity of tradition, I would be as pleased as punch (I'm not exactly sure what that means, but I would be it).