In my dream a crime. Not one that would affect me, but blatant, harmful. Was it my duty to try to stop it? What if that attempt would involve me and mine in complications, delays, danger? Easier to walk away! It was just bad luck I’d happened on this crime! Was I my brother’s keeper!

The crime, if I knew it, vanished, but not the debate, which was stressful, distressing. I found myself empathizing with the priest and the Levite in Jesus’ parable, who bypassed that anonymous victim on the road. Damn the Good Samaritan for showing us up as cowards! We had responsibilities, mouths to feed. That lowly Samaritan – scum, really – had nothing important to do, he could make the time, maybe he was seeking a reward …

I’m guessing the killing of Alex Pretti shoved me into this shameful quandary. Would I have gone to the aid of that anonymous woman, set upon by our nation’s thugs? Wasn’t I praiseworthy just for showing up at this protest? (And, man, was it cold!) Wasn’t I already better than my neighbors, for doing something?

We’d all been bystanders watching the video of the brawl: shit happens, right? Then the shots popped – OMG! – and we were complicit. Alex Pretti had died for me. He had died because we the people – I included – had failed to act.

Some are more prone to guilt than others. Some rinse it casually as grime. Others brood: if A had been different and B, if I’d done more or differently, mightn’t the catastrophe have been averted?

In words I’m valiant; in deeds, a shirker. I shy from beggars. They are so many! And half of them are derelicts. And I’m in a hurry. And don’t I preach grace? And, and, and… a fast-talking defense attorney, I justify myself before a scowling judge.

We the people have been guilty of neglecting our precious patrimony. Frivolous, stupid, inattentive, we left America battered on the road. We knew better. Those who voted wrong voted whim, spite; those who voted right could have, should have done more. I’ve talked a good game this past decade, but shouldn’t I have done more?

A poem comes to me by Thomas Hardy. It seems, at first, unrelated: a lover’s stabbing regret, years after what seemed a trifling negligence. Petulantly, he’d torn her love letter into bits, and when he thought better of it the next morning, he was unable to retrieve her name and she was lost to him forever.

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedI learnt I had missed, by rash unheed,My track; that, so the Will decided,In life, death, we should be divided,And at the sense I ached indeed.

That ache for you, born long ago,Throbs on; I never could outgrow it.What a revenge, did you but know it!But that, thank God, you do not know.

So we the people with our birthright. Our framers gave us a Constitution. For a time we tended it, but then we watched it torn to shreds. Must the price of our neglect be endless regret? Or might we yet paste it back together and adhere to its ideals?

“The penalty that good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men,” wrote Plato. “Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing,” wrote John Stuart Mill.

We have been neglectful. We saw the crime and said nothing. We watched our ideals torn to shreds. We are sunk in gloom – but there may yet be time. The letter is not dead.

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Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedTHE TORN LETTERThomas Hardy

I tore your letter into stripsNo bigger than the airy feathersThat ducks preen out in changing weathersUpon the shifting ripple-tips.

In darkness on my bed aloneI seemed to see you in a vision,And hear you say: “Why this derisionOf one drawn to you, though unknown?”

Yes, eve’s quick mood had run its course,The night had cooled my hasty madness;I suffered a regretful sadnessWhich deepened into real remorse.

I thought what pensive patient daysA soul must know of grain so tender,How much of good must grace the senderOf such sweet words in such bright phrase.

Uprising then, as things unpricedI sought each fragment, patched and mended;The midnight whitened ere I had endedAnd gathered words I had sacrificed.

But some, alas, of those I threwWere past my search, destroyed for ever:They were your name and place; and neverDid I regain those clues to you.

I learnt I had missed, by rash unheed,My track; that, so the Will decided,In life, death, we should be divided,And at the sense I ached indeed.

That ache for you, born long ago,Throbs on; I never could outgrow it.What a revenge, did you but know it!But that, thank God, you do not know.