THE UNGATING

Lee Durham Stone

(Inspired by “Waiting for the Barbarians” [1904],

by Constantin P. Cavafy,

who saw himself as an outsider.)

The gates are open today.

Then, what are we psychologically gating for

(assembled in our public and cyberspaces)?

Why is civic culture withdrawing to celebrity worship?

And turning to entertaining ourselves to death?

Because the screens flash that outsiders are passing

the gatehouse;

and some nation builders returning from the endless

war

(to ensure that globalization is properly

Americanized),

say that borders have too many gates to close.

And now, what shall become of us,

without a bordered and boarded world

of the outside/inside, frontiers, and gates?

Those structures were a comfort to the gatekeepers.

Now we live in a gateless community with everyone

inside.

And the asymmetrical wars of the Pentagon’s new

cognitive map

Patrol the restless nodes, paths, and edges.

The cogni-cartographers say the world is ungating.

There are no gates to open

--except in our gated minds.