considered parental property and a general nuisance, they may become a treasure of the whole community, a moral obligation and a source of spiritual renewal for all.

SUMMARY AND

CONCLUSION

Current trends suggest that modern marriage, as the sole permissible setting for the expression of sex, may soon be supplemented by other patterns of mating. While the majority continues to give lip service to the concept of one-matefor-life, a growing minority feels that in the light of recent developments a more liberal system is needed to promote the good life for all. This is not to say that marriage in the traditional sense will cease to exist, but that other forms of union will be devised to serve the interests of those for whom marriage as we know it offers little of value. What these alternatives may be is a matter for conjecture. The author suggests a number of possibilities, ranging from short-term marriages to role playing in elaborate socioeconomic dramas, with special arrangements for the care

and training of children.

The fact that current trends may suggest changes does not, however, imply either that we should resist or support them. To the extent that we are willing to abide by the institution of marriage as it is, rather than flee to other patterns the consequences of which we know not of, innovations will be forthcoming. But if we are in doubt-as many seem to be -as to which might be the better course, the least we reasonably could do would be to lend our support to the necessary investigations and to develop a willingness to accept and act on whatever the results of such investigations may be.

Instead of joining the reactionaries who demand a return to the "good old days," it is advocated that we acknowledge the changes that are upon us and accept responsibility for directing them with all the rationality, foresight and skill of which we are capable.

Is there any other way to evolve toward a civilization richer in human values?

ALL UNCLOTHED

Unashamed and all unclothed I bathe in the tingling tears

of sun-bright yearning

to satiate desire

in your round full eye

until my nakedness is covered,

by the darkness in a pool whose chill smooth surface is, for a moment, ruffled before my love for love is drowned.

COMPENSATIONS

Some loves, like moths, fly, blind, to love again

poems

D.F.

and singe their wings

on an indifferent flame.

Some loves burn

-before their blaze expires-

on wax, a wick, a wing:

their funeral pyres.

My love's signature

is not the blazing or the flying kind,

but the aftermath of smoke whose wisps

by alden kirby

inscribe themselves

D.F.

an age or two-on my mind.

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