Views from Raven's Nest: Daily Reminder # 80

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Daily Reminder # 80

I get very frustrated by politics. I really should avoid it, but it has a certain siren call for me. I love my country. I love what we have stood for for most of my life, although I feel these days like we aren't standing for it well. We seem sort of like the good Christian woman who, having been disappointed by the preacher, throws her faith and ethics out with the bum who betrayed her trust. We experienced terrorism once. It was horrific, but it wasn't an excuse to throw away our constitution, our values, our moral compass or our brains, yet many of us did so, particularly those in power. Still, the foundations on which my country was built are profound. What we have aspired to as a people - even though we fail miserably much of the time - is noble. The trick is holding to those values when things get tough and not damning the possibility because we fail to achieve the ideal.

So anyway, two VERY old poems - I was SOOOO young when I wrote these - but I guess in some ways, I'm still as young as I was 40 years plus ago. I just wish my body was keeping pace with my Spirit instead of limping along like it was 150. But at least it's limping and I digress...

I AM TOO YOUNG TO WRITE A LONG POEM (1969)

I am young and do not know enough to write a long poem
I do not understand the evils that men do
That they see each other only cruelly
And thereby justify their own injustices
I do not understand why cages are so necessary
To protect us from each other
Or why, locked in those cages
We put on masks to keep back even those we trust
At the same time pleading to be loved
I do not understand what I can do in so big a world
Where we are all crowded so far apart
And where we talk, not to each other,
But to audiences, and majorities, and minorities
Where awareness and humanity are catch-phrased out for us
By mass media and men with charisma
I do not know what I can do
And I do not understand why even though I don't believe in fear
I sometimes feel it surging up inside me
So that I want to run and hide, to get away
I do not understand that I am useless
In a world that has so many problems left to solve
Yet I have no solutions
Easy answers, yes,
But I am just old enough not to believe them
And just young enough to still have hope
But still in all, I do not understand why fear can conquer trust
Or greed abolish dreams
And so I am too young to write a long poem
Which ought to have answers.

- Katherine E. Rabenau

DEMOCRACY

I do not know if it is America I love
Or just her promise
If it is the Declaration I cherish
Or just it's poetry
I cannot know if the framers of those pretty words
Were good or evil men
Nor should it matter really
For can art be judged by its' creator's merit
And should the dream be condemned
Because reality betrays it?

- Katherine E. Rabenau