“Why Bother about the Form of the Good? Let's Go for the Good Itself,” a Left-Hegelian Professor Said in Response To My Budding Platonism Years Ago

 

When the restless afternoon
Begins to break into evening dusk,

Surely somewhere in some far-flung town,
Along some back-street way,

A blonde woman always appears,

Neither young nor old,
Yet brazen enough, as suits her kind—

Neither clothed too much
Nor—yet—in the buff,

But, in a strangely timeless act,
Pressing forward

A piercing point,
A silent riot,

By which she ratifies anew

An old philosopher’s teaching
About geometry,

Which dares to reveal
So much of what otherwise remains unseen,

And the need
For a well-bound form—

How easily, without it,
Even the good

May become,
For many,

What Set’s gift became
To Osiris—

A finely measured,
Ajar tomb.