Soapbox

I wrote this poem at the Ohio Poetry Day event, where attendees were challenged (after a presentation from a lady on the Bicentennial Commission) to write a poem about Ohio, in the spirit of the bicentennial. I didn’t expect this to be a hit, for political reasons, but it won second prize! The Bicentennial Lady wasn’t judging.

Where the broad brown river flows
On its timeless journey
To join with the Great Father Water,
Proud dark eyes once watched from among the trees.
Silent feet trod narrow trails
Where the smoke from village cookfires
Smudged the pale morning sky.

Ohio: a land of plenty
Cradled in the sweep of the Beautiful Water,
Rising and falling with the breath of the seasons,
With forests so dense
A squirrel could run to the banks of the great north lake
And never touch the ground.

And then the seekers came to this wild place,
Across the ancient mountains
And up the teeming rivers,
Each of them wishing to claim one small piece
Of that beautiful abundance.

They came, with names both great and small,
And they changed her face forever
As their axes flashed in the morning sun
And gunfire echoed across the hills.
Her first children,
Those who named her,
And treasured her wild nature
Were swept away at Fallen Timbers,
Robbed by the pen at the treaty table
And poisoned by the white man’s pox
Until the last of the village fires grew cold.

Plows divided the earth,
Narrow trails became wagon roads
And flowering meadows became golden with grain.
The rolling hills were soon dotted
With sheep and cows
And apple trees.
Houses and fences sprouted
From the bones of the ancient forest.

Ohio, land of the beautiful waters,
Blushing from green to gold
In the rhythm of the seasons:
Growing, rich and giving.

And still they came,
Seeking opportunity in a good land,
And some, looking north toward freedom.
Hamlets became small towns
And quiet avenues, busy streets.
The broad brown waters
Were cris-crossed by barges and riverboats,
Bringing the people in,
Taking the coal away:
Providing wealth and opportunity.
Towns and factories grew
Along the banks of her rivers and lakes,
And the once-beautiful waters
Were disfigured by their own prosperity:
The morning sky smudged now
With soot and smog.

And still they come.
They come to her cities,
Seeking success
And when they find it,
They move to the country-
But they take the cities with them,
One gas station at a time
As they cut down the trees
And name their streets after them.
The rich, giving land is imprisoned
By grey concrete
Which swallows, mile by mile,
The quiet farms
That swallowed, mile by mile,
The silent forests that came before.

Ohio, land of the shopping mall,
Where people drive to their walking paths
And an SUV can travel from Cincinatti to Cleveland
And never be far from Walmart.

But still there are those
Who prefer the brilliant hues of a roadside weed
To the uniform green of a golf course:
Who cherish the wild places
Away from the noise and smell and trash of the city.
They walk along the banks of the beautiful waters,
where they can still catch the scent of a cookfire on the morning breeze
And smile to hear an acorn drop
Onto fertile soil
As a squirrel jumps from tree to tree.

The last of the afternoon storms have passed
And the sky begins to clear
To show sunset’s blush in the western sky
Through the cool, rain-washed air.
The earth’s full flagon turns and tips
And another day treads the rim, and slips
Over the red horizon
And into the night’s dark snare.

Only a moment ago, it was morning
Full of the robin’s call,
Coffee and news on the table
But I blinked, and missed it all.
Where did it go, this August day?
How many more will slip away
through my careless fingers,
‘Til green summer is golden fall?

Yesterday was the first of June,
The summer stretched long and new
And bright with possibility,
But twilight comes too soon.
A young man watches the evening sky
And realizes September is nigh:
Can he feel his world tremble with change,
The way I suddenly do?

Surely it was just last week,
A trickle of time’s sand
When he was s stumbling child,
Clutching his mother’s hand:
But even now, his life turns and tips
And quickly, so quickly, his childhood slips
Through my clumsy fingers
And the boy becomes a man.

How easily now matures into then,
And yesterday, long ago.
Seems barely a year since I was 16
Watching the summer go:
Wondering what my future would hold,
How it would feel to ever grow old:
Caught in time’s rushing torrent
And thinking it moved so slow.

I watch a moment longer, and then
I bid this day goodbye
Grieving the many I’ve spilled, unheeding
From my own life’s short supply.
As again the shadow of change does fall
I wish I had better treasured them all:
The day, the summer, the childhood,
The crimson August sky.

Last night I was watching 60 minutes and they did a story about the “Skull and Bones” society, the secret select group at Yale U. that George Bush belongs to. There was discussion of what some of the rituals are, is it a bunch of foolishness (uh, yeah!) and do members exert undue influence in this country Out of approx. 800 living members, there are 6 in the current administration. That’s a pretty heavy concentration, given the population of the country. But none of that was of any real interest to me.

What did make me sit up and take notice was mention of the fact that George Bush’s grandfather, Prescott Bush, purportedly robbed the grave of Geronimo, stole parts of his skeleton, including his skull, and brought them back for display and use in the secret redoubt of the Skull and Bones Society. The “expert” they were interviewing said that there is today a glass case of bones that are referred to as “Geronimo”.
Grave robbing???!!! This is the illustrious, blue-blooded past of our president? Next we’ll hear that another ancester was a profiteer in the civil war, selling over-priced guns to the union army that sometimes blew the face off of the soldier firing them.
This is serious! I want to know: IS that Geronimo in that box? And even if it isn’t, he stole somebody’s great grandfather, (or grandmother) and they should all be ASHAMED and grossly penitent and put the damn thing back!! How dare they make some stupid, ritualistic game that involves the bones of anyone!
I have a modest proposal: lets go find Prescott Bush’s grave and dig his ass up! Then we can wire the skeleton together and use it for a joke prop down at the Davis Theatre where my kid acts. After all- he’s dead, so what difference would it make? Would George Bush think that was harmless fun and no big deal?

I’m not one of those hard-core people who believe that no ancient bones should ever be dis-interred, even for scientific study. Anthropology is an important science, and the bones can be treated respectfully and then re-interred with dignity after study.

But there was nothing dignified or scientific about this: it was grave robbery, pure and simple. This would be a crime if I did it to ole Prescott’s grave, but I guess it doesn’t count if the body is just some old indian, huh?
I wouldn’t have thought it possible, but my opinion of Bush II has gone down even farther.

It seems to me that it is the refuge of a desperate defense and a weak character to blame the victim. This is what we see happening now with the Bush administration’s sudden attacks on the character of Joseph Wilson, the man whose wife was recently “outed” as a CIA agent, perhaps by the Bush administration itself.

When the story broke there was immediate hue and cry by the democrats, who, scenting blood, called for a special prosecutor. After the debacle of the Ken Starr investigations (which left us all in need of a shower) I’m not sure that a special prosecutor is the way to go- except that the administration’s assurances that Ashcroft and Justice will be thorough and impartial make me laugh til I cry. If they’re going to handle this so thoroughly, why did the swift hand of Justice wait until Wednesday to order administration staffers to preserve any and all documents they might need for the investigation? Isn’ that usually the first thing you do? Even a person less cynical than me could be forgiven for thinking that Ashcroft got the word that the White House staff was done with the paper shredders by then and so the coast was clear.
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