Thinking About the Longstanding Problems of Virtue

Essays, A Play, Two Poems and a Prayer

Tony Kushner

• Publisher: Theatre Communications Group
• Year: 1995
• Print ISBN: 9781559361002
• eBook ISBN: 9781559366397
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: American Drama
• Index: Literature

A collection of writings from the Tony Award- and Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Angels in America. This volume by Tony Kushner features the play Slavs!, a “comic, mordant and marvelously provocative” look at the crumbling of the Soviet Union (SF Chronicle), as well as several essays, two poems and a prayer.

I. DESIGN

Here then is the Design, an imposition which,
like any imposition, must rankle, has to be
resisted
even if, as we do now,
it calls on us to celebrate—
for what is life without Design?

Mere anarchy, that state of black
geographilessness,
a house too big to rattle in
without a fear of loss
or getting lost . . .

We need a System,
of roads, of compass points, of up and down,
and now and then,
a Highway Sign, arc-lit emerald-bright
against the dark of sky at night:

Which sign reads: We
are here, and probably,
down this path there lies a point
towards which we want, but not too soon,
to go.

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Celebrate Design then, let’s!
The intricate arabesques, the curved, flowering branches of
an improbable symmetrical tree,

word and ritual and public vow,
timely impositions on
the ineffable anarchic love

that blossoms madly in these hearts.

II. HOUSES

1.

We’ll build a little Dutch House,
somber geometry of liberality and justice,
warmth, comfort and the common good,
planes of dark, polished wood
and thick cool walls,
generous surfaces to catch
the everywhere-falling white
plaster and amber light.

2.

our house will be
as a Japanese house

tangible, in a world
of fearsome drifting illusion

but not too tangible

translucent screens
of paper and wood

the cold is welcome,

it does not frighten us

and low lacquered tables to mirror back
the scattered and the ghostly light.

3.

In our French house we dance
minuets,

ma minette,

aerial duets

in candelabra light,
the heaviest thoughts are infused, made
buoyant, float like stones to the ceiling,
ALOFT, borne up by our elegant helium joy.
The soft light of tapers illumines us there.

4.

Or we’ll inhabit a tent in the desert.
Muezzins hosanna to Allah at sunset,
their long cries the shifting design of the dunes,
the dying sun-side burnished, hot peach;
lead-cold mauve in the obverse, shadows of spoon.
Cloth-house for nomads,
for portage by camel and starlight at night,

oh what a practical turtle-affair,
this nomad domesticity, traveling light.

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The sand floor patterned in waves by the wind,
the faint smell of water where
no water is ...

5.

. . . in our little German Haus
We dwell as Jews do, uneasily, but
Mad for the art und the music that’s there . . .

6.

In our Spanish house,

the rustle of the olive groves,
the light as it moves through the leaves,
which silver it.

The oranges:
little sprays of scented mist cloud out
where our greedy fingers tear the skins . . .

Waves lap and crash against the bedroom door.
We wait and listen and dream of seafood.

And exchange tearing, torn, Moorish
Mediterranean looks:

In the lemonlit bedroom, my own Spanish lover,
Eruptions reflect.
Perched above the sea.
In your kiss I taste sea-salt,
Rainbow-shot, citrus, not

unlike the savor of somebody’s tears.

Not mine, I hope!

7.

Our rock and roughcast Finnish hut stands
In woods of Arctic Pine.
Giant, raggedy black trees,
shagged by the coldest winds, outside.

The black pines sway:
The breathing of winter that travels leagues,
Across barren wastes from Russia-way.

We are warm inside, in bed, in sweaters,
Finnish sweaters: Knobby Wool
Of some tough sheep.

Thump! Thump!
Outside elk and reindeer bump their noses
against the stones of the bedroom wall. ...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• AN EPITHALAMION
• Dedication
• .
• THE SECOND MONTH OF MOURNING
• A PRAYER
• ABOUT THE AUTHOR
• Copyright Page