The Great Crash at Crush, Texas in 1896.
I’m still processing today. I am on my way out the door to the Annual Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Interfaith Prayer Breakfast sponsored by Faithbridge here in Crystal Lake. I think I will spend the rest of this day honoring Dr. King and his legacy…and avoiding the TV and hours of wall-to-wall coverage of the anointment of a dark second coming. I don’t have the stomach for it.
I will get the essential gist in summaries and recaps. I will pay attention to the sixty or so reported executive orders ready for signature and the chaos, fear, and oppression they unleash. I will be vigilant about things like the mass deportation campaign originally set to launch today in Chicago but which may or may not be delayed.
Eight years ago, with Donald Trump taking an oath he never meant to keep, my mood was very dark. This poem was an introduction to my Poems of Resistance, a little self-published (and out of print) chapbook.
January 20, 2017
The locomotives are aligned on a single track,
throttles lashed wide open,
the engineers jump as they pick up speed
belching black smoke and urgency.
The time has come, nothing can stop it now.
There is nothing to do but stare slack jawed
or turn your head and cringe.
If in your enthusiasm for the spectacle
and to get your money’s worth
for the excursion ticket,
you crowd too eagerly close,
you are riddled with cast iron shrapnel
and scalding steam.
It’s exactly like that.
—Patrick Murfin
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