The Philosopher
for Cheng-Wei Chin (Magnolia Bakery, NYC, March 18, 2019)
- Jee Leong Koh (Singapore)
Capitalism will wither away,
my friend assures me, as technology
reduces the cost of making anything
to nothing and we will work as we please.
After quitting Wall Street a year ago,
he had time to think. The universal,
what is true at all times and in all places,
occupies him. And capitalism
has a beginning and, no doubt, an end,
unlike the desire for equality.
He looks at me with meaning and I am
once more the LGBT activist.
I almost ask about the struggle for status,
is that not universal too. I don’t.
Here is someone I knew in my lost youth,
in long-ago Officer Cadet School
and luckily recovered in New York.
How is the laughing boy soldier related
to this, the sober philosopher? He looks the
same,
hair black, the narrow face, big eyes,
still handles himself with robotic grace.
As if he read my thoughts, my friend goes on,
he does not think we have a self, if by
a self we mean a thing that stays the same.
Our cells, beliefs, our memories, they change
throughout our lives and arbitrarily,
and what we call our self is what remains
when death discontinues the changing change.
We talk about several other things
but these things stay with me after we say
goodbye outside Magnolia Bakery.
In the spring air a chill not there before
marches me smartly to my uptown train.