And the Time Is: Poems, 1958-2013

As a Rule

193 As a Rule Victors annoy me. They overdo their victories with too much puffery. I’m more inclined to share the universal lot of losers, not out of sympathy but frankly in the name of candor. Losers have the look of men and women in their natural predicament— patient, sullen, luckless and determined. Call it the look of ultimate acceptance. It shows how unmistakably we sculpt our truest profile in defeat. And history agrees. Not every country haloed its heroes with laurel. China for centuries found soldiers deserving of pity, even in triumph. Aztecs honored their champions by sacredly beheading them. Was this their way to prove no head could swell if there were no head there? Or that the temporary anguish of defeat was less deplorable than braggadocio? 194 Or that the once defeated could arise triumphant from their chains, as history confirms they do, to prove that victories are brief? Some take exception to such views, but, as a rule, they’re true. ...