Way back in 2013 I wrote a poem and posted it here. It was in the midst of a crisis that seemed at the time to be an overwhelming and immediate danger but in comparison to what we have endured lately seems downright quaint. As you may dimly remember back then the Republican Congress made good on its chest beating threats to let the government shut down rather than pass a routine raise in the Debt Limit because they were in a life-and-death struggle with Barack Obama over, you know, stuff. Experts—all of the folks who will proclaim that they know what they are talking about—were predicting dire consequences up to and including a world economic collapse that would make the Great Depression look like your mommy forgot to put a Twinkie in your lunch box.
It turned out that after a few days of tourists being turned away from the monuments and museums on the National Mall, and some needy folks had some checks delayed, the bankers who hold the paper on the Republican Party applied some judicious leverage and presto! A deal was worked out, the debt limit was raised, and everything got back, more or less, to normal, whatever the hell that is. President Obama once again holding no more than a pair of deuces took the pot from Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan who had, you should excuse the strained metaphor, a full house.
Of course neither I nor anyone else knew the ultimate outcome that day nine years ago. So I felt compelled to speak to the situation not with stunning and astute analysis buy with a damn poem.
It turns out that this one recycles usefully today. And may again in the future….if we have a future. There are always dire consequences at hand these days. Take your pick! Swap ‘em! Collect ‘em!—precarious democracy and violent civic division; climate catastrophe de jure; threats to women, immigrants and refugees, LGBYQ+ folks and any else who is “different;” maddening war, war, and more war; the next gun massacre at home.
Political poetry has the shelf life of sushi on a pushcart in Phoenix in August. It has a long and noble history since the days when long satirical ballads were printed anonymously in partisan newspapers, through the righteous radicalism dripping with the blood of workers and peasants, to acid penned short pieces in the columns of Puck or The New Yorker. This is none of those. Read it fast before it evaporates from your screen.
This Morning
October 1, 2013
The sun rose this morning
heedless of deadlines
of wails and curses.
But that doesn’t mean
we must sit idle
with Zen-like equanimity.
The dew on the grass
invites the first foot print.
The crystal air refreshes
our lungs.
The wind at our backs
pushes us to action.
What they have done,
is done.
What we will do
is yet unwritten.
We have but one resolve—
not to be pawns
on their chessboard
anymore.
—Patrick Murfin
No comments:
Post a Comment