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Show Earth, Air, Fire and Water. Four magic elements from which all things can be shaped. The man who knows the secret words can bid them do any task, but he also must know the words to dismiss them. A magician must be committed to one master, however, must serve good or evil. In this he has an advantage of simplicity over most human works, which are combinations of accident, intent, malice and beneficence. Certainly men did not set out to foul the globe, but rather were intent upon insuring their own freedom. There was no realization that liberty implies responsibility in the ecological sector, nor that men cut off from the world are men isolated from one another, with no common basis for communication. Anthropologists tell us that man and his culture evolved simultaneously, that one wouldn't be human without cultural background. As man cut his ties with Earth, he drifted apart from other men, so that he could not communicate, and thus was enabled to war and kill on inhuman scales. "Them," "The Gooks," "Krauts," "Charlie"-none of these are human, like us. Killing their young is no crime, burning their homes is no atrocity. An enemy must always be inhuman, since sane men do not wish to kill one another in an impersonal manner. The use of bows, the invention of projectile weapons, bombs-these are all for strangers. When he cut himself free from the bonds of living, Man left vast and open wounds. What man can heal THE BLEEDING EARTH Wander through the ashen desert plains of fused and broken cities, grey sun setting on green glass hills. Thirst for laughing crystal, thirst for living gold. Taste of chiming waters' streaming music on your tongue -running water's burn and glow, languid liquid splash and flow, eating through your body to spew on poison ground. Dying children, small corpses lye still. If Good Earth doesn't get you, Big Bomb will. When at last you die, among polluted ruins, scream your breath at the strychnine sky, and feel the Earth's revenge. Killer. So we come face-to-face with our problems, with no place to run, with no way to put them by. Can alien Man survive unaided on his own planet? What will next be painted upon our cavern walls? 12 |