Wergild for Your Taken Husband

for Mark
by P. G. Karamesines

Never before had life spoken in such terms.
“Oh, and, I took your beloved but in his place, see?
I put this bend-branch crop of golden peaches.”

What am I to make of such animal fraudulence
as squares a fruit harvest with the reap of his life?
This is fairy ciphering that toys with changelings.
The reckoning of cats that sets mouse guts at the door.
Adonai splitting winnings, refurnishing Job in kind.

Peaches as man gold, quittance for a taken husband.
And a Nature that can’t read irony in its wind-borne
seed, some lit upon fertile ground and no difference
in opinion for the most, broken on rock. Its viral skill
at surrogating cells. Its bacterial nose for opportunity.
Its epochs of extinction articulated as stones. So clambers
wisdom by its elbows onto natural selection’s mud flat.

If only life had turned him out like dandelion fluff—
by the hundreds, the thousands—out in the abundance
of mushroom spore, seahorse fry, ghost moth eggs.
If only, slipping through a breeze’s fingers or tumbling
in riffles down a neat streamlet, some expression of him
had found just five happy crèches cobbled, cradling
life, and in one of those lived it out as do brutes
of lesser spine and no conscience at all. But!
Survival favors the vandal over the charitable mind.

Chapter One: The Fly

Helophilus pendulus, hoverfly, female, resting on a bush’s leaf. Image by Kyle J. York. Reproduced under CC BY-SA 4.0 Deed. Wikimedia Commons. Resized. 27 August 2020.

If you descend Crossfire’s infamous trail, follow the steep slope down from the trailhead, cross the spring over one version or another of log assists people throw on the marshy ground, go through the barbed wire gate to just where the roots of the canyon wall enter the talus slope, you’ll see to your left a little rock outcrop, big enough for two but very comfortable for one. Beside it, a little way down the slope, a spring rattles by, making little watery speeches, humming light tunes.

For months, as my knees heeled I made this my perch, sitting still, listening to the inflections of the place, witnessing from a single vantage point a pie slice of the canyon’s life. It was only a wedge, but it was a dense wedge teeming with event. More than enough to satisfy—for a while.

In the late summer of 2008, nine months after Crossfire’s closure to motorized vehicles, I sat at my favorite sandstone perch just off the recently become infamous trail. I still could not make it very far down the trail, but if I took the path slowly, resting often, I could reach a small rocky outcrop.

Review/Commentary: The Liars of Nature and the Nature of Liars: Cheating and Deception in the Living World, by Lixing Sun, Part 3

By P.G. Karamesines

“In [Chapter 8: ‘Living with Lies and Deceptions’], we will see that cheating, contrary to its pervasive notoriety, is actually essential in our economic activities and social lives, and it is a critical part of our education and cognitive development. So, there is no question as to whether cheating is permissible. The question is what kind of cheating should be allowed and when it is morally justifiable. And more pragmatically, how we can live—thrive even—in a world full of lies and deceptions” (p. 189).

The Liars of Nature and the Nature of Liars: Cheating and Deception in the Living World, by Lixing Sun, Princeton University Press, 2023.

In Part 3, we return to the question left dangling at the end of Part 2, one that some might think an obvious human quandary: When is it permissible to cheat?

While some readers may jump at the answer “Never!”, as the quote at the head of this post shows, for Sun, the real question is not “when,” but what kinds of situations permit it? Personally, it feels to me a deeper inquiry would first ask, “Is it ever permissible to cheat?” and, if yes-answers arise, ask, “Under what circumstances?” Then narrow the matter down to its most defensible positions. But in the last couple chapters of the book Sun is so certain of his position that cheating is not just permissible but practically necessary to live in society he appears to abandon the methodical approach he takes in the the first five chapters. To my eye, many of his arguments fail to rise above the level of opinion. Still, some parts of his inquiry bear exploration

But first, a personal story.

Review/Commentary: The Liars of Nature and the Nature of Liars: Cheating and Deception in the Living World, by Lixing Sun, Part 2

By P.G. Karamesines

“Cheating in humans, is unrivaled in the animal world—whether in scale, variety, intricacy, or novelty” (Sun, p. 132).

If you think Sun’s claim of humans’ dominance in one of nature’s most problematic behaviors goes over the top, as I would have years ago, hear him out.

“This is due primarily to three factors: the use of language [italics mine], a high level of intelligence, and the complexity of human societies. Language provides a new powerful tool to lie and deceive [italics mine]; intelligence facilitates the invention and design of schemes; and societal complexity supplies a wellspring of opportunities to defraud” (Sun, p. 132).