{"id":2426,"date":"2022-01-26T20:14:43","date_gmt":"2022-01-26T20:14:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/oxfordquaker.com\/newsletter\/?page_id=2426"},"modified":"2022-01-31T16:02:47","modified_gmt":"2022-01-31T16:02:47","slug":"lies","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/oxfordquaker.com\/newsletter\/february-2022\/lies\/","title":{"rendered":"Lies"},"content":{"rendered":"

Many of you will know the poems of fellow Quaker Dana Littlepage Smith from The Friend or elsewhere. This is a poem from her book What Love Requires<\/span>, published by Overstep Books, and seems to me to capture the tragedy of the culture of lies that dominates current politics, and their devastating consequences. Dana was very happy to share it with us all.<\/em><\/p>\n

Juliet Henderson<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n

Lies<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Dana Littlepage Smith<\/strong><\/p>\n

Falsehood flies, and Truth comes limping after it…<\/em><\/p>\n

Jonathan Swift, 1710<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/strong><\/h2>\n

The lies came easily
\nat the end, as easily
\nas fire counterfeiting light
\nuntil it swallowed
\ndarkness. As easily
\nas darkness sexing
\na starless sky into night.
\nOther were noble lies
\nwhich fell like Plato\u2019s rain
\nengendering the social
\nharmony: dissimulators
\nuntil the end of time.
\nBut no one knew
\nwhere the roots,
\nthe steadfast ones,
\nhad burrowed
\nin our post-truth world.
\nLight seemed to slip away.
\nsome said it illumined \u2026
\nAll the while, the lies
\ncame fast as funerals
\nfor glaciers. Meltwater
\nbrimmed our eyes.
\nTruth and beauty
\nmight have blinked as falsehood
\ndanced its thin red line
\nover the horizon,
\nThe suicides
\nbecame fake news.
\nFalse witness
\nworked overtime.
\nOur blinded eyes
\nreminded us of something.<\/p>\n

\n\n\n\n
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Back to February 2022 Newsletter Main Page<\/a><\/p>\n

Forty-Three<\/em> Newsletter \u2022 Number 514 \u2022 February 2022
\n<\/strong>Oxford Friends Meeting
\n43 St Giles, Oxford OX1 3LW<\/p>\n

newsletter@oxfordquakers.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Many of you will know the poems of fellow Quaker Dana Littlepage Smith from The Friend or elsewhere. This is a poem from her book What Love Requires, published by Overstep Books, and seems to me to capture the tragedy of the culture of lies that dominates current politics, and their devastating consequences. Dana was … Continue reading Lies<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":50,"featured_media":0,"parent":2408,"menu_order":3,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2426","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/oxfordquaker.com\/newsletter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2426","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/oxfordquaker.com\/newsletter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/oxfordquaker.com\/newsletter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oxfordquaker.com\/newsletter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/50"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oxfordquaker.com\/newsletter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2426"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/oxfordquaker.com\/newsletter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2426\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2538,"href":"https:\/\/oxfordquaker.com\/newsletter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2426\/revisions\/2538"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oxfordquaker.com\/newsletter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2408"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/oxfordquaker.com\/newsletter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2426"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oxfordquaker.com\/newsletter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2426"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oxfordquaker.com\/newsletter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2426"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}