In ‘Storm Fear’, Robert Frost tells us about how he and his family wait out a winter storm in their isolated farmhouse.
Registering, while awake late into the night,
"how the cold creeps as the fire dies at length -
"how drifts are piled,
"dooryard and road ungraded,
"till even the comforting barn grows far away,
he worries, as he closes,
"whether 'tis in us to arise with day
"and save ourselves unaided.
Re-Listening to Volodymyr Zelensky speaking on March 4 to the peoples of Europe, Frost’s insistence on self-reliance came back to me yet more poignantly.
Wenn Zelensky an die Europäer appelliert: “Unterstützt unsere Bemühungen und unterstützt unseren Kampf, denn wenn die Ukraine nicht steht, wird Europa nicht stehen, wenn wir fallen, werdet Ihr fallen”; wenn er hinzufügt: “[…] schweigt nicht, verschließt nicht die Augen davor. Kommt raus und unterstützt die Ukraine, so gut ihr könnt”, stellt er uns genau dieselbe Frage: “Haben wir es in uns?”
It is good that the German government is now taking a determined stance - and may this new-found mettle last! But ultimately, it’s up to each of us, every citizen and every business in still-free Europe: Do we have it in us to withstand this attack on how we choose to live and do business? And, how do we best help those who are now bearing the brunt of the aggression?
Dietmar
Frankfurt, March 8, 2022
Lucilius Interim Dr. Dietmar Scheja
torm Fear quoted from the Penguin Selection of Frost’s poetry first published in 1973. The translation of Zelenky’s speech is taken from the Washington Post’s Youtube channel, accessed via https://lnkd.in/er4CzNpv on March 6 at 22:00 hrs CET.