The country is so bitterly divided no one hears what the other is saying. Each side talks to itself, with the other side the hated Other. The once great Democratic party of Truman and Kennedy has been captured by the radical haters of the Left, who have no use for civility or for much of anything else besides their own hatreds. They see a country full of hate, full of venom, full of vitriol, and do not realize they are looking in a mirror.

 

I had a revealing experience many years ago. I came upon my Irish setter pup staring at a full length back of a door bedroom mirror, rigid as stone. He could see there was something looking back at him, but since there was no smell, his primary sense, all his instincts told him there was nothing there. Yet clearly there was. I think there are a lot of people like my long gone but never forgotten Irish setter pup; they see reflections and believe there is something there, not realizing the reflection is them.

 

 

TO A LOOKING GLASS

 

Reflections of an empty room

A curtain moving in the breeze

A passing figure briefly seen

It cares not all for what it sees

The heirloom hanging in the hall

Reflects the living, not the dead

Who are still there, beneath the new

Who will in time have in their stead

The newer still, the living shades

Mere visitors, a constant frieze

The mirror hangs there, silent, still

Not caring all for what it sees