The Etruscan centaur holds up his right hand,
not palm outward as if to stop chariot traffic
or solemnly swear an oath to the gods,
but in time-honored Italian fashion palm inward,
as if to say, What is the deal here?
I bought this one, painted in black on a small
red dish, from a shop on the Corso Cavour.
They threw in a little plastic stand so I could
prop him on my desk, where he ramps
behind a miniature portrait of fir trees in dark fog.
And perhaps that’s where he’d rather be,
galloping that gray mountainside
past dripping firs, parting a way
through mists of time to emerge where
he is least expected, say, at a wedding
in Thessaly, where he is to read
a sacred text from Ovid with his hand held high,
presiding over the ceremony as if
he were purely innocent, when we all know
where those hooves of his will soon take him.
Dear Reader,
Can I be direct with you?
War abroad. Socialists on the rise. AI upending human life. Endless uproar online. The modern attention economy doesn’t want readers — it wants users enslaved to the tyranny of the present.
First Things is the antidote: literary excellence, timeless truths, and a fixed point of reference in a culture that has lost its bearings.
But we can’t do it without readers like you.
Our goal: Raise $150,000 by November 1 to sustain First Things in the year ahead.
Your gift anchors readers in the permanent things.
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