Welcome back to the Daily Pullum, a podcast from Goldberry Studios. I'm Sean Johnson and today is Wednesday, June 4th, 2025. Today's Pullum is by Edna St Vincent-Malay and it's called Concientius Objector. A lot of the poems that I selected from Malay for the Daily Pullum are showcasing her wit and her playfulness, but today's Pullum is a little sharper.
In contrast with yesterday's Pullum by Emily Dickinson, this too is a contemplation of death, but it personifies death not as a sociable companion to travel around town with, but as an insurgent enemy, an invading army, a stopo-style secret police, and it lays bare pretty deftly through this extended metaphor. All of the uncomfortable ways in which we can be drawn very easily into complicity with death, we can remain unaware, we can look the other way, we can even urge or encourage the death of others as long as it's them and not us, in something as seemingly benign as the allegiances we hold. And Malay's speaker here seems to have become painfully aware of how simple it is to be drawn into cooperation with death, and that in resisting death as this kind of enemy who wants to divide and conquer, you simultaneously become a compatriot of all of your fellow human beings. And suddenly the battle lines are redrawn and your focus can be redirected to the true enemy, the last enemy to be defeated.
Here is a conscientious objector. I shall die, but that is all that I shall do for death. I hear him leading his horse out of the stall. I hear the clatter on the barn floor.
He isn't haste. He has business in Cuba, business in the Balkans, many calls to make this morning, but I will not hold the bridle while he clinches the girth, and he may mount by himself. I will not give him a leg up. Though he flicked my shoulders with his whip, I will not tell him which way the fox ran.
With his hoof on my breast, I will not tell him where the black boy hides in the swamp. I shall die, but that is all that I shall do for death. I am not on his payroll. I will not tell him the whereabouts of the bull.
I will not tell him the whereabouts of my friends and or of my enemies either. Though he promised me much, I will not map him the route to any man's door. Am I a spy in the land of the living that I should deliver men to death? Rather, the password and the plans of our city are safe with me.
Never through me shall you be overcome. This has been the Daily Poem. Thanks so much for listening. We'll be back tomorrow with another poem for you.
Till then, find us a Daily Poem Pod.substack.com. To listen to past episodes, to subscribe and become a supporter of the show. And we're just to start a conversation about a poem you like. Till then, for all of us at Goldbury Studios, I'm Sean Johnson, wishing you happy reading.