Stands a child with her father,
Watching the east, the autumn sky.
…Up through the darkness,
While ravening clouds, the burial clouds, in black masses spreading…
…From the beach the child holding the hand of her father,
Those burial-clouds that lower victorious soon to devour all,
Watching, silently weeps… (On The Beach At Night/Walt Whitman)
These are excerpts from a much longer poem, ‘On The Beach At Night,’ by Walt Whitman, and for me, these three passages resonate and ruminate throughout my mind, my body, and my ability to maintain a sense of sanity; having tried to find hope and honesty, purpose and promise, these past eight years.
The tyranny of TRUMP and all of the collateral chaos he has caused has me looking into the sky, steering into what has become a void, a seemingly vast blackhole, which grows and grows and, as it evolves, seems to take greater pleasure in devouring the silent, those who remain quiet, and the naïve. I fear the horizon I witness. I watch that horizon grow bleaker and bleaker, darker and darker, knowing that right before my eyes, the magician has shown us his tricks, cons, schemes, and phoniness, YET he still maintains a stronghold as a grifter. I am not the only person seeing this manipulation, but the quiet, the silence, the sheer lack of indulgence to stop this charlatan seem to smother me and those around me.
We must stop, as a nation, ‘looking the other way,’ pretending that ‘both sides are equal,’ ‘keeping our heads in the sand,’ or up our own asses.’ As a nation, we must stop from closing our eyes and hiding under the blanket, presuming that by ignoring the monster, IT will go away. We see the burial clouds, we can hear the ruinous rumble of chaos they bring, we are told what kind of awful to expect, and YET, it seems we prefer being the victim instead of being victorious!
