Cast Your Vote … Maybe: A Review of Jason Brennan’s The Ethics of Voting

It’s election year. That means the news is abuzz with statistics, primaries, caucuses, candidates, political gaffs and every other sundry item related to the public disaster that is American political life. Tying nearly all of these issues together is an action that occurs every two years. In November, millions of American citizens will write on small slips of paper and cast their votes for the candidates they think will best serve our country (or at least slow its trip to oblivion faster than the others.) But beneath even this act lie a couple of unasked questions: should we vote at all? Why?

But of course we should vote, comes the immediate objection. America is a democracy; every citizen has the right vote, and it is right and good that every citizen who can exercise that right. This ensures that our democracy will run smoothly and that (most of the time) good candidates will be elected. Is this true? Not quite, argues Brown University professor of political philosophy Jason Brennan. In his book, The Ethics of Voting (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2011) Brennan argues that many of the common conceptions of the moral dimensions of voting and the nature of participatory democracy are either misplaced, wrong or dangerous. The book is provocative and may cause some controversy. Despite several points of disagreement between myself and Brennan, I believe the book is eminently worth reading by any citizen who would like to participate in the American Democratic system.

Brennan’s argument can be summarized briefly in the following propositional statements. First, that not every citizen has a duty to vote. Second, that if a citizen decides to vote, that citizen is morally obligated to vote well. By voting well, Brennan does not mean voting in any particular political direction. What he means is that a voter must have “epistemic moral justification”–they must have rational knowledge that is evidence that a candidate will contribute to the common good. For Brennan, this is a rigorous requirement that means many people who currently vote should be morally required to abstain.

In the first chapter, Brennan does an admirable job dismantling the arguments that a citizen of a democracy has the duty to vote. Arguments from beneficence, morality and the effectiveness of mass voter participation are carefully analyzed. (Space considerations prohibit me from offering detailed review of all of Brennan’s Points.) Chapters 2 and 3 lay out Brennan’s central claims of how a voter should vote in a democracy, with Chapter 2 showing that not everyone has a duty to vote and chapter 3 defining just what it means to “vote well”. The remaining chapters are expansions on Brennan’s central claims. Chapter 4 lays out the conditions for voter deference and abstinence, with Brennan forcefully arguing that voter deference (acknowledging expert opinion) and voter abstinence can be morally praiseworthy. Chapter 5 fleshes out Brennan’s particular idea of the common good, based in philosophically liberal western thought. Chapter 6 was my least favorite chapter, but also the most provocative chapter in the book. Brennan takes his argument about voter abstinence a step further, laying out a case for buying and selling votes as not inherently unethical. Chapter 7 uses current research in social science to analyze how “well” voters behave. Brennan’s answer may surprise, voters behave more rationally as the candidates are narrowed in an election and rather atrociously in the initial primaries.

Let me lay out a number of points where I am in agreement with Brennan. His central argument is one I find persuasive, at least from a moral point of view. As someone who is both politically conscious and cautious about making inexpert judgments, I found his advocacy of epistemic moral justification to be reasonable, if difficult. (A point that is acknowledged by Brennan himself.) His analysis of collective versus individual action is fascinating and will illuminate the counterintuitive workings of democracy. In short, Brennan argues that individual voter action is negligible when compared to the collective action of a voting block; this, ironically, makes it more rather than less likely that voters will behave rationally. His vision of the common good is one with which I am in philosophical accord, though there how it relates to his overall theory of voting ethics needs to be fleshed out.

This leads to my most significant problem with the book. Brennan argues, along with many libertarians, for an individualistic and rights-based conception of the common good. Unfortunately, his theory of epistemic moral justification does not require voters to abide by his definition of the common good. Voters, in Brennan’s moral schema, are perfectly free to vote according to their own conceptions of the common good, as long as they have rational epistemic justification for doing so. This means that I could reasonably vote for Hitler and be morally justified in doing so if my vision of the common good matched Hitler’s policies. This is an Achilles’ heel in Brennan’s overall point, and he would have done well to more vigorously defend a classical-liberal common good instead of just presenting it. (Barring that, he should have at least directed readers to other philosophical justifications of such, such as John Rawls’ A Theory of Justice.)

Brennan’s book is an important work of moral philosophy. The arguments are (generally) sound, the writing is lucid and accessible, and the points he makes important. As he acknowledges, however, the people most in need of these arguments (“irrational” voters, as he refers to them) are unlikely to pick up this book. If this review does anything, I hope it encourages anyone reading who has knee-jerk instincts around politics to know that their cynicism might not be groundless and that it just might be all right NOT to vote. The book challenged me as a citizen to think long and hard about not only who I vote for but why I vote and whether I even shall. Despite some reservations and a wish that certain arguments were more thoroughly defended, I can give this book the highest of recommendations.

Creation by the Word: Does Language Structure Metaphysics? (Philosophy and Literature)

Words have power. Whether it is the oath of office as the President is inaugurated, the not guilty verdict from the foreman of a jury, or the phrase “your fired” from a manager, words are more than just a collection of sounds or letters. For the past two millennia, philosophers have sought to explain what language is and how it affects reality. Is language–as Derrida would have us believe–merely a self-referential set of signs that inevitably deconstruct one another? Is language a mere shadow of eternal ideas, as Plato set forth in his theory of forms? Or does language have some other purpose? To attempt to expound an entire philosophy of language in such limited space would be unwise and impractical. This paper will set forth a brief argument: namely that language, but both a philosophical and theological perspective, structures metaphysics (not vise versa) and that literature is a subcategory of language’s effect on metaphysics. First, I will articulate the argument against this position: that language as a sign-system is structured by external forces and consequently not directly related to metaphysics. After that argument has been expounded, the opposite will be argued for: that language structures reality, both at the macro level (objectively) and at the micro level (subjectively.)

The relationship of language to metaphysics has been hotly contested over the centuries. The first to explore language’s nature to philosophy in depth was Plato, in the fourth century BCE. While Plato never articulated what modern philosophers would call a “philosophy of language”, Plato’s theory of forms is relevant to the topic in two ways. In essence, Plato’s theory of forms states that there are two manners of existence: eternal and temporal existence. In eternal existence there reside perfect forms of every object. For example, the essence of “man” exists philosophically and eternally, and temporal man is part of the expression of that essence. This theory is the primary way of understanding essentialism (the belief that essence precedes existence) in philosophy. Plato’s's doctrine of forms was famously articulated in the allegory of a cave. This allegory imagined a group of people living in a cage, in which the images of outside were seen as shadows, though the cave-dwellers believed the images to be real. When one man was brought out of the cave, the shock of seeing the real images was overwhelming. The theory of forms, and the idea that essence comes before existence, has a distinct answer to how language is (and should be) used. According to Plato, language expressed ideas, just as physical objects did, though language was one step removed. Plato argued that language best served mankind when it came as close as possible to expressing the eternal essence of a thing. This meant that, for Plato, language did not create metaphysics it all: at its best, language could only attempt to express eternal metaphysical forms. Literature, for Plato, was a bastardization of language because it used poetic devices such as metaphor, which diluted expression of the eternal essence. Literature was useful only at the behest of philosophy, which was the best way to express eternal ideas.

Another idea that argues, from a slightly different perspective, that language cannot shape metaphysics is deconstruction. Deconstruction claims that language, as a system of signs, is inherently self-referential. Language spoken must refer to other language: even a single word contains a host of assumptions about other words and concepts, which also self-reference. Jacques derrida, the founder of deconstructive literary theory, claimed that the meanings in texts were inherently unstable because of this self-reference. Thus, words cannot shape metaphysics: they may shape preconceptions, but there is no reason to believe that words actually structure our reality. Richard Rorty (whom I will discuss in more depth below) somewhat agreed with this position, but his philosophy of language is quite different from Derrida’s. Deconstruction says of literature that the idea of the author’s intentionality is, if not nonsensical, at least not useful in understanding how literature express reality, because the meanings behind the texts themselves are constantly in flux. As Kevin Vanhoozer articulates in Is There A Meaning In This Text? deconstructionists gradually came to espouse not only the death of the author, but the text and even the reader.

These two systems of thought–in some ways at opposite poles–both claim a negative on the question “can language structure metaphysics”. Is there a philosophical answer to these problems? I believe there is. Philosophically, Richard Rorty espoused the idea that language does structure reality–in fact, that is its distinguishing feature. Rorty agreed with both the deconstructionists and Plato, however, that language was also contingent–it was based on something outside of itself. That “something”, for Rorty, is experience, which shapes how we talk about the world (which, in turn, shapes how we experience the world.) Rorty argued in Contingency, Irony and Solidarity that “truth is made”–not just by individual sentences of a language (“the sky is blue”), but by what he called vocabularies: the very structure of the language that determines how we think about the world. For Rorty, then, language can create reality: the concept of a “month”, for example, does not have an essence outside of human construction based on experiencing time. What this means is that in practical terms language can structure reality: not all of it, and not completely, but the possibility nonetheless exists. Language both expresses reality that exists outside of us (assuming that there is such a thing, contra solipsism), and creates the reality we experience by “chopping it up” into manageable bits, as it were. There are fewer better examples of how this occurs than Jorge Luis Borges’s short story “Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis”. The story describes the creation of an encyclopedia from another world, a world with a vocabulary structure entirely foreign to our own. On Tlon, the distinction between subject and object does not exist, and this is because that Tlonian language has no vocabulary to prove the existence of objects. For Tlon, reality is re-shaped by their language: the existence of objects is in some sense negated by the structure of Tlonian language. In the story, the encyclopedia becomes so famous that it begins to be taught in schools in the real world, and the narrator theorizes that by the next century our planet will effectively become Tlon. Thus, Borges argues (in a rather brilliant example of meta-fiction) that even a nonexistent language structure in a fictional work can effectively transform or restructure existence.

There is another angle from which the problem can be viewed which intersects with Rorty’s idea of contingent language. That idea comes from classic Christian theology: namely the Word of God, a Word that is not contingent (because neither is its speaker) but can create the possibility of a contingent language. As William Barclay, one of the first philosophical idealists argued, our existence is contingent, yet we can share experience because the infinite (from which our existence comes) is non-contingent. Furthermore, in Christian theology the Bible–the work that articulates both metaphysics and anthropology–is not a set of philosophical propositions. Instead, it is a work of literature that dictates reality through a specific vocabulary. This is entirely appropriate, given the notion of the Word of the Infinite mind speaking reality into existence. In a sense, Christian theology agrees with Rorty, reality is shaped by language, both human language and the source of language itself (as Paul Tillich might have put it.)

Plato’s theory of forms and Derrida’s idea of the self-reference of language both have important things to say. While Plato’s theories cannot explain everything about reality, they attempt to prove the reality of objects based on metaphysical forms. Derrida, on the other hand, keeps philosophy humble by pointing out its inability to transcend itself. These two ideas, and the requisite questions of how language shapes metaphysics, can be reconciled by Rorty’s philosophical idea of contingency. Further, Rorty’s ideas are clarified by theological ideas such as the Word that creates reality. As stated above, “words have power.” The power of words is that of structuring reality and shaping our ability to understand metaphysics. Literature expresses this ability through its re-creation of worlds through systems of vocabulary and storytelling. As in Borges, literature itself is a form of metaphysical speculation, and at its most extreme (a la Tlón and the Bible) can actually re-callibrate humanity’s's understanding of what is real.

Dulaman and the Authenticity of Crossover Music (Music As Global Culture)

What is authenticity? The question of authentic or inauthentic music has haunted many discussions surrounding folk music, particularly after the folk revival of the 1960′s (which sought authenticity) and the burgeoning interest in global music and non-classical forms of expression in the latter half of the twentieth century. Highlighted particularly in these discussions is the relevancy of crossover artists–those folk-artists who work in multiple genres, or who “adapt” traditional music in different western modes. A notable example of this type of group is the band Celtic Woman. This group gained popularity, particularly in the United States, in the mid-200′s. One song, released on their 2007 album A New Journey, illustrates the struggle to define authenticity and the apropos of crossover artists in the current musical milieu.

On one’s first listen of “Dulaman”, one might not guess that Celtic Woman was a crossover group at all. Opening with a salvo of complex drum rhythms backed by a small chorus of male singers, the song soon launches into spirited Gaelic, accompanied by tin whistle. The language may strike the non-Irish listener as exotic, yet touched by a hint of the familiar. With the cadences and repeated melodic patterns of a work-song, Dulaman seems a true example of purely authentic traditional music. But even at first listening, the astute observer may detect something out of the ordinary. The strains of string and other orchestral instruments aren’t prominent at first, but as the song picks up speed and its dynamics increase, the non-traditional instrumentation becomes quite evident. At the song’s climax (in which the women of the group, normally featured first and foremost, fade into the background) the strings and brass of an orchestra or chamber group can be heard. Even as the song comes to a rousing conclusion, there may yet be something that hasn’t been seen.

To understand the questions this song raises, one must know the origins of this song in the Celtic folk tradition. Likely originating sometime in the nineteenth century, the song takes its name from a well-known type of seaweed–or dulaman–found along the Irish coast. This seaweed is collected by harvesters and used for multiple purposes, including food. The song tells the story of two rival families on the shore, whose children have fallen in love. It is likely that, if and when this song was performed, it was in the setting of seaweed harvesting. In that sense, the song is authentic–it is a traditional Irish tune which focuses on a recognizably Irish subject. But as mentioned already, the instrumentation is one aspect of the song in its presentation by Celtic Woman that is not traditional. Celtic Woman as a group is not necessarily a traditional Celtic band: their ethnicities range from New Zealand to Canada to Ireland and to America. They do not shy away, in this or in most other songs, from adding “modern” elements to the music to give it a crossover appeal. But does changing the song in this way lessen its authenticity or somehow corrupt the Celtic tradition of music-making?

These questions are important, and lack easy answers. On the one hand, there are those who argue that modernizing Celtic and other styles of ethnic music in this way is a good thing: it furthers the music’s popularity and notoriety and draws interest where there might otherwise have been none. On the other hand, modernizing the music in this way can also be said to decontextualize the music, thus rendering its traditional significance (and the wider cultural understanding that comes with it) null and void. This raises larger questions of musical purpose: what is music for, and for whom is it meant in various circumstances? Songs like Dulaman and groups like Celtic Woman are important precisely because they raise these questions, and because they provide a window in which different avenues toward the production and understanding of authentic ethnic and “global” music can be reached.

Memoir

I don’t keep photos.
Flat, thin, whisfering,
They hold only shades of sight
Buried beneath cellophane and silicon,
Framed up in and around bare walls.

A picture is not worth a thousand words;
A memory is worth the substance of the darkness
Cast by a photograph, or a thousand.

Memories fill up with sun,
Leap into shadow;
The warm loom of a cliff at my back,
The wine-and-sunset smell of light on the lake,
Minnesota wind blowing through the leaves
And the disappearing picture
Of myself.

I don’t want to see myself,
I want to ride remembrance like a starling,
Whistling out the trembling song of the past
In suspended notes
That look back at
Fading peaks.

The Death and Resurrection of Theology

There’s a lot in my head today. I’ve been reading Merton, especially, and that seems to have juggled something loose. The “joy of studying God”, as Thomas Oden puts it in his systematic theology, seems to have gradually begun to return. This whole season of religious experience seems awfully–and not coincidentally, I hope–appropriate to the season of the church year in which we now reside. I suppose the struggle has always gone on, and I can say with some certitude that it began much earlier than Advent. But Advent as a liturgical season drew the existential reality of the absence of God, and of the spirituality of foresakenness and abandonment, into sharp relief.

A few weeks before Advent started, I had the distinct pleasure–and displeasure–of reading emerging theologian Peter Rollins’ newest book, Insurrection. Insurrection was in many ways a prophetic encounter, as in the coming weeks all of my emotional and psychological doubts about God, Christ and the church would come flooding to the surface of my thoughts and would not be quelled no matter what structure I put in place to try and understand them. Rollins’ book calls for a deeply experiential kind of theology: a dangerous theology, because it calls for us to participate in the radical reality of the crucifixion in a way noone else but Luther has dared to do. It was not a message I understood or wanted to hear, until the weeks afterward brought home–for the first time in my life–real doubt as to the presence of God. This time was not just a felt absence, as most of us probably experience in “ordinary” dull moments of life. It was much deeper, an anxiety-producing “negation” as Tillich might have called it, a sense that God as a concept was meaningless and the church a squabbling group who was unified over nothing. It is not common in American Christianity, particularly the gung-ho evangelicalism with which I grew up, for those kinds of doubts to be voiced aloud. I admit that I felt comfortable sharing these doubts with almost no one; not only because of the seeming rarity of such feelings, but because for the first time in my life doubt was of an incredibly non-intellectual kind.

So what happened? I gradually came to understand, over the period of Advent culminating in and around Christmas Day, that such a doubt is part and parcel of the human condition. It was in reading books like Tillich’s The Courage to Be that I understood both my feelings of meaninglessness and despair and my unwillingness to either abandon the feelings or abandon the faith on which the feelings are based. I hesitate to call this experience mystical, or a dark night of the soul. Its brevity makes me wonder how important it truly was. Nevertheless, I think I have begun to understand the existential reality of faith, and the idea of “dying to oneself” in a much more visceral way than I otherwise would have. It’s a painful experience, and I can’t say I enjoyed it. But through the turmoil of doubt, the resurrection of the joy in theology seems all the more remarkable. It is comforting, too, to know that I have never been alone: though I have not devoted much time to them apart from daily Gospel readings, the Psalms set forth a similar idea of crises of faith, along with resurrection and deliverance, that ground my experience of divine absence in traditional Christian language.

All that is to say that spiritual formation is something I am only beginning to understand. In the same way that my present doubts were less intellectual, my renewed theological joy is less grounded purely in propositional logic. Every story must have its lows, and any theology that cannot also be a grand story is not worth much. Narrative, liturgy and existence are all tied into a knot for me: my existence as an individual is reinforced and transformed through the overarching theological narrative of Christianity proclaimed and enacted in liturgical prayer, worship and sacramental participation.

The Descent of Mount Carmel

He strides from burned dogma,
Stone wittled by divinity into a witness
Ever-standing. But none will see
The darkness in the fire now,
For the descent is smooth.

He goes down the mountain,
Leaving behind the thought of rock broken
Into shards of memory.

Below him is the road that winds
Into the unceasing circle
Of questions. This answer
Of flame is not one
That should be given.

For it means death from life
And fire from stone
And change from stillness.

And he wants only stillness.

Losing What I Never Had

Displacement, having one foot solidly planted
And yet existing half in and out of the air
That most breathe. Off-balance,
I experience life as a figment of ignorance,
Of knowing something was lost but never lost.

I am supposed to lose what I do not have
To understand, and to be understood. But in the clear limbo Between lacking and blazing light where no such
Is, I cannot bridge the gap.

Growing up like a slender plant with no buds,
Never understanding the will to bloom outward,
Never understanding what it means to have a portion
Of sense ripped away. There is only a hole
That is not a hole. It is only a space
To be filled with words
That cannot make me lose something
I do not have.

The Absence of God and the Presence of Adam: A Prayer

(Inspired, in part, by the first chapter of Archbishop Anthony Bloom’s Beginning to Pray.)

Almighty God, you called out to Adam when he was lost and brought him into your presence. By the judgment of your Word Adam was made present and then cast from your presence.

Moses desired to see a vision of your glory; instead, you showed him your back.

Job asked the never-ending human question–”why”? He was given no answer.

Israel longed for a Messiah with hosts, a king who would crush the nations like pottery. Instead they were given a crucified king, killed by the very foreign powers he was expected to overthrow.

God, spare us from your presence. By the grace of your Spirit overcome within us the presumption that longs for you as you are. We cannot bare you as you are, only the fleeting light of your back or the mediation of flesh in Christ. In your absence, the old Adam dies daily as the new Adam grows. May we look upon your absence with as much pleasure as your presence.

Light/Dark: Polyphony and the LA Chorale Sing Lauridsen’s Lux Aeterna

Lux Aeterna, a choral work set by American composer Morten Lauridsen, is a work of opposites. It is an old choral idea–part of a requiem mass–set to a new form, with new words. Emotionally, it ranges from jubilation to sorrow. Musically, it contains diverse elements, from soaring unison passages to densely layered inverted chords. Perhaps most striking is that two different choirs, from two different countries, could produce such remarkably different interpretations. The piece contains five movements: the Introitus; In Te, Domine, Speravi; O Nata Lux (a setting of a hymn not normally found in a requiem); Veni Sancte Spiritus; and Agnus Dei. The work was premiered by the Los Angeles Master Chorale with the Los Angeles Master Symphonia under the direction of Paul Salamunovich. Released in 1998 under the RCM record label, it was for many years the “official” interpretation of the work. In 2005, the English chamber choir Polyphony (known for, among others, a recording of much of Eric Whitacre’s choral music) under the direction of Stephen Layton took on the challenge of recording the work anew in partnership with the Britain Symphonia. Layton and his choir took a quite different approach than Salamunovich and the LA chorale. The two recordings–while similar in some respects–contain remarkable interpretive differences: in the orchestral balance, in intonation, and in tempo.

Though both recordings of Lux Aeterna are performed with symphonias–small orchestral ensembles–the balance in each orchestra is somewhat different. This is especially evident in movements such as In Te, Domine Speravi (movement 2) in which there are prominent instrumental solos. In these cases, the Britain Symphonia tends to rest at a mezzo piano, allowing the solo (usually an oboe) to command the most attention. The Los Angeles Symphonia, by contrast, has the orchestra play at a louder volume, thus making the solos (and the interactions with the chorus) less easy to discern. This is especially evident in movements 1 and 5, where prominent motifs repeated by both symphonia and chorus are masked in the Salamunovich recording; this is, to a certain extent, due to the strongly present low strings. Since the Symphonia is not kept as distinct from the choir in Salamunovich’s interpretation, the Chorale shines on its unaccompanied movements. (The Miserere in In Te, Domine, Speravi is a masterful and heart-wrenching interpretation; likewise with O Nata Lux, which will be discussed further below.) Polyphony and the Britain Syphonia, though not as blended as the Los Angeles ensembles, interact well; it is very evident, particular in the Introitus, when the orchestra and choir are “playing off” one another.

Another striking difference in interpretation is the type of intonation. The Los Angeles Master Chorale is singing within the American choral tradition, it is dark, large, even florid at times. Polyphony sings in a more English style: straight tones with bright vowels and a very precise sense of movement among pitches. One can immediately tell the difference at the beginning of the Introitus. The Los Angeles chorale sings slowly, with a dark but somewhat breathy tone. Polyphony opens with a bright tone devoid of ornamentation; this gives the opening of their recording a chant-like quality, reminiscent of medieval music. Neither of these styles is effective for every movement in the piece. The minor, contemplative In Te, Domine Speravi is well-suited to the ethereal tones of the LA chorale, with Polyphony’s interpretation falling slightly flat in comparison. However, on the more upbeat sections–particularly at the beginning of Veni, Sancte Spiritus–Polyphony’s sense of precision and forward tone serves them well, especially on the unison passages in that movement.

The last and most crucial difference in interpretation concerns tempo. Salamunovich took the choir at a very slow tempo throughout. Even where an increase in speed might have been called for–such as the fourth movement or the Alleluia in Agnus Dei–the Los Angeles Chorale holds back. Polyphony interprets in precisely the opposite fashion: their tempo is notably faster (another factor contributing to the chant-like sound) even when a slower tempo might have been more prudent. This is notable in O Nata Lux: Polyphony takes the movement at approximately 3:40; the Los Angeles Chorale a full one minute and ten seconds faster. Conversely in Veni Sancte Spiritus, Polyphony sings at a brisk pace, with the 6/8 time signature exceptionally evident. The Los Angeles chorale takes the movement much slower, which causes the rhythms to become somewhat muddled. In both cases, one interpretation is superior in a musical sense: the O Nata Lux calls for a slower tempo in light of its lyrics and its structure, whereas the joyous fourth movement almost demands a fast pace.

The two recordings nearly resolve their differences in the last movement: Agnus Dei. This is the movement where both choirs displayed unrivaled confidence, poise and choral acumen. The tempos fall fairly close together; Polyphony’s intonation darkens; and the Los Angeles chorale breaks out of its shell at the last alleluia with immense fortissimo harmonies. Nevertheless, the differences in recordings remain. They demonstrate two nuanced, intelligent approaches to the music, and both succeed admirably at their goals. One will come away from each recording with slightly different attitudes. It speaks very highly of both choirs and their conductors that two such diametrically opposed ways of interpreting a piece can each produce a beautiful, top-notch sound; it speaks very highly of the composer that a work containing so many opposites can integrate them all into a single, unified whole that still retains its diversity.

Falling

I feel autumn in my bones,
Tre-sap rises with my blood;
I feel the urge to leap, to run
Over cold fire, into wood.

Leaves are born like egg-shells
With scents of loam and passed time,
Wind is gone for moments–
Brings the blades of mountain-rims
Upon its current; it gives bones
The feeling of lightness like wings
Or leaves flying over rocks
To a bluff where silence rings.