Thursday, June 16, 2022

History Lessons


This land has a history

Of pretenders who crown themselves

rulers

Of tax people who believe

that gold currency is thicker than blood

Of ruthless charlatans

who proclaim -

follow my words and ask no questions 


This land has a history

Of idealist students & artists who said

honesty is the best policy

Of street protesters who

were arrested, silenced and killed

Of mothers whose children

were banished to reform schools

and returned with Samson-cut hair


A birth name is forgotten

A native tongue is lost

A folk song is never played

An umbilical cord to earth has been

forever severed


Who does this land belong to?

There is bounty for all 

Forests, seeds, fruits, flowers, lakes

But the puppetiers and despots

have changed the script

and rewritten history to suit the fate lines

on their palms


I write to you

young people of this land:

hear the sadness of matriarch elephants

listen to the loneliness of ancient trees

take heed of the whale song from the sea

all that glitters is not gold

Heed my warning:  

Those who do not learn from history

are doomed to repeat it*


*Quote from George Santayana


Posted for dVerse Poets Pub - Meeting the Bar with guest host, Anna Montgomery.  Fall seven times, stand up eight where we explore aphorisms, myth, and fables by writing our own gnomic poetry. I have used maxims and aphorism in my poem.   


7 comments:

  1. This is a lachrymose and apt history of the land and its peoples. I hope with all my heart the young people hear your indictment and take heed, co-creating a new path that is not doomed to burrow deeper into the wounds of the past.

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  2. "listen to the loneliness of ancient trees."

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  3. "Hear the sadness of matriarch elephants" hooked me good. This piece is quite the successful departure from your normal poetic parameters; I enjoyed it. It reads like a ballad.

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  4. A cry from the heart! Well said!

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  5. A heartfelt write, Grace! We ignore history to our own peril.

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  6. so many don't heed the lessons ~

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