#1041. Bonds of Freedom 11

I think we tend to forget

That the English

Really were

The ones 

Who decided to settle 

The New World.

They weren’t 

Exploring 

They were actively 

Colonizing.

Between John Smith,

The Puritans,

The Pilgrims,

They established 

What it was

To be a European 

Living in North America.

Today we look at it

From the perspective 

Of encroachment,

We redefine 

The Thanksgiving story

As the prelude

To slaughter.

But it was never the story

Of trying to decimate 

The native populations.

Daniel Boone,

For instance,

Was as close to

Straddling 

The two worlds

In a famous capacity 

As we ever got.

We forget

That in terms of technology 

They really weren’t so different,

That the whole point of

The Thanksgiving narrative 

Is that the native peoples 

Gave these Europeans 

A chance to survive,

And that horses

Were not native

To the Americas,

That the native populations 

Very quickly adapted

To them

So that in later generations 

They had master the equestrian life

Perhaps better

Than anyone else had

In history.

What happened 

Was not prelude 

Was not destiny

But rather

A culmination 

Of choices

That played out.

The English

Built societies

In the New World.

We look at what happened in Salem

As emblematic 

Of how primitive they were

But it’s the Mayflower Compact,

Really,

That demonstrated

How quickly 

The idea

That was to define these lands

Took hold

In the imaginations

Of the earliest 

English migrants,

That it was the idea

Of opportunity,

Of freedom

That inspired them.

We think American history 

Begins with the Revolution,

With a Declaration of Independence,

With the formal recognition of

Of a country,

But it begins

With English settlement,

With the foundation stories,

For they really are

As American as anything 

That has happened 

Since.

9/11 at 25

Twenty-five years ago

I experienced what I still hope

To be

The most infamous day

I will ever live.

I listened

To radio commentary 

Explain that

A plane

Had flown

Into a building.

And it escalated from there.

I was at breakfast

In the dining hall.

Then I was at Jennifer Moxley’s

English class.

Then I skipped French class.

And started to watch

The footage.

I didn’t call home that day.

My mom wished

That all of her kids had

But we didn’t.

What we learned later

Was that some of them

Traveled through Bangor.

I was in Orono,

Attending the University of Maine.

The next year

I wrote my first 9/11 poem.

I’ve tried writing one

Every year since.

Some of them got lost along the way.

Some of us

Got lost, too.

This was orders of magnitude.

This was a day that changed everything.

And we still don’t understand 

How.

We don’t know

What was supposed to happen

To have been

Achieved.

It wasn’t 

A declaration of war

In their part.

But we declared two wars.

And for some

That was the outcome.

For some it became

Anathema to carry on

The patriotic response.

Not the wars

But the feeling

Of unity.

So for much

Of the past

Twenty-five years

Some have struggled 

To feel proud

In any visible way

In our country,

Not through the old

Counterculture 

But as a new culture,

A new fade

Toward despair,

An acceleration of

A yearning

Just to fade

Into a global context

Perhaps 

Where we don’t stand out

Where there isn’t anyone 

Planning attacks

Against us.

For some

We remember.

We remember the day.

We remember the days

That followed 

When we were united,

When we came together,

When we mourned,

When we reflected,

When we were all Americans.

We told the stories,

We were amazed

At how some passengers 

Guided a plane

Into Shanksville,

At how office workers

Called home

One last time,

How there were heroes

Who endured the debris

That by some reports

Would kill them

Just so they could find

Survivors.

A president 

Read a book

To children 

In a school 

In Florida,

And remained calm

And kept reading.

That is how I remember him.

That is how I remember 

What happened.

I don’t think

I can ever

Forget.

(This is for you,

Gallaher,

Who didn’t think I could commemorate 

Such an event.)

#1039. Bonds of Freedom 10

I think I’ve already mentioned this?

But it confuses me

That context

Is so easily 

Forgotten.

The Spain that commissioned

Columbus 

Had just recovered

Its national mandate,

It had just emerged

From centuries under 

Muslim rule.

I honestly don’t know

How this is not

A larger part

Of the historic narrative.

It’s fashionable 

Today

To point out

That Columbus 

Thought 

That he was headed

Toward India,

That at no time

Was he aware

That he had

In fact

Discovered

The New World.

You need look no further

Than the fact

That we still call

Native Americans 

Indians

Today.

But names aren’t reality,

And the reality is

That Spain kept sending ships

To the New World,

And the whole world

Was transformed 

Because of it.

What were the results?

Well,

Today it’s fashionable to say

That we wrecked the New World,

That we demolished 

Some kind of golden age.

But maybe

Just maybe

The result

Of Spain

Pushing and pushing

For European interest

In the New World

Permanently expanded

The world’s horizons.

I would suggest

In every way

That this was a good thing.

It fueled possibilities.

It was in every sense

An impossible dream,

And one still worth

Believing in.

Stop weeping for lost worlds.

Stop insisting 

A retrograde appraisal 

That suggests 

The world we live in now

Is the result of sin.

Sin existed long, long before

Columbus.

Some would certainly suggest

That Spain digging itself back

To national determination 

Was one of the best things

That ever happened,

And that good things happened 

As a result,

That we still reap

The rewards.

A fountain of youth,

You might say.

You might also say,

A new birth

Of freedom,

Freedom to expand horizons,

Freedom

For Europeans

To break free

From the constraints

Of the past,

The old patterns,

The mistakes of the past.

It was Old Europe

That created the world wars,

Not the New World.

#1038. Bonds of Freedom 9

The Vikings

Essentially 

Ruled the world.

To be clear, the European world 

In the wake

Of the Roman Empire.

They were able to do this

Because they had mastered

The sea

And they thought nothing

Of exploiting it

And all those 

Around them.

They were 

The barbarians,

Make no mistake,

Although nostalgia 

Against a Christian world

Has obscured this,

Converting 

Norse gods

And mythological dread

Into a legendary past 

The likes of Tolkien

Understood

To be heroic.

The thing they really accomplished,

Though,

Was discovery

Of the New World.

They called it Vinland.

But although they were

Uniquely poised

To find it

They could not

Exploit it.

For its people

Offered 

Nothing of value 

To them,

And that was the Viking way.

But what they accomplished

Was a tangible legacy

In the European memory,

Which was the echo of Vinland,

Which was passed down 

Better than Odin,

Better than territory,

Better than treasure,

Which was the future.

The freedom

They found at sea

No matter the cost

Was to be inherited,

After all,

By the world.

Although certainly,

Not without a cost.

The first to pay 

Were the Vikings themselves,

Who were left behind 

By the tide of fortunes.

#1037. Bonds of Freedom 8

Here’s the thing

About the Red Scare:

Well, of course!

Everything in this one

Is a lie.

In the aftermath

Of WWII,

Berlin

Became split

By a wall.

It was literally 

The coldest city,

Where Americans 

And Russians

Straddled,

Where the crux

Of the postwar world

Existed

In its purest form.

The Red Scare

Existed

Because communists 

Existed

In the United States,

And even the communists

In the United States

Started realizing

That communists

In the United States

Were probably,

To characterize them

With a single word,

Crazy.

Then the culture 

Started telling us

They were heroes.

Even when they denied

What they were

Or had been

But were clearly there

Because of it

To have them

Attempt to stem the tide

Was called a sin.

The Berlin Wall

Came down,

And Germany

Officially reentered

The modern world,

And Russians 

Stopped being Soviet.

But communists

Still got to be heroes.

I can’t explain it.

Freedom from tyranny 

Is the ability to comprehend 

That reactionary impulses 

Should not define

Anyone’s idea

Of mainstream thought.

Freedom is freedom

When it counts everyone.

When it trickles upward,

That is the death of freedom,

When it stifles the individual 

While claiming

To liberate them,

When they cannot speak

When they think they are a martyr 

Because they cannot speak,

When the wheels of society

Are falling by the wayside 

For what they call the greater good,

When power centralizes 

And grows paranoid,

Seeking and eliminating 

The enemies within

And refuse debate,

That is not freedom.

Freedom is knowing

The difference.

#1036. Bonds of Freedom 7

The Civil War

Is certainly 

The most peculiar episode 

In U.S. history.

Like all wars

Americans have fought 

It was an unpopular one.

Try to remember that.

The idea of what it was fought for

Has actually been debated.

But there is no debate.

It was fought

Because of the institution 

Of slavery.

Period.

The Union believed

Because of the rising Republican Party

That slavery no longer had a place

In legitimate society, 

That its spread

Should be curtailed.

The South believed

It should continue 

Across new state lines.

Many lies have been told

And believed

Since the war was fought

And most of them

By those who are now

Claiming to be

The proponents 

Of moral superiority.

Strangely,

They obsess over the details

They don’t understand,

That the slavery

They abhor,

That subjugated 

A race 

And warped

And defined

History

Is now

A thing of the past.

They can’t understand 

Disparities

They accept as everyday life

As having anything to do

With the peculiar institution,

That exploiting others

Under gross terms,

Because they term it

Giving the next generation 

A better future 

Somehow means

It’s okay

If the prior one

Suffers.

Put in the hard work!

…Somehow only really 

Required

And is a reality

When someone else

Has to do it

All day

Every day

Of their lives,

Not behind a desk,

Not on paper,

Not networking

But being trapped in a job

With no chance of leaving it

Just for the idea

Of giving your children 

Opportunities 

You never had.

When we look at immigration now,

How many of those we pity

Are going to live

Better lives only insofar

As they are escaping worse conditions 

Back home?

How many are destined 

To live

In their generation, 

The lowest levels

Of our society?

Does that make you proud?

Does that sound

Like a system that is working?

That you should argue

Is worth fighting for?

Does it really sound

So much better

So different 

From slavery?

Slavery, 

In which a person

Had no other choice?

If an immigrant 

Must work in a field

In order to work at all,

That is slavery.

If an immigrant 

Will only find work

By cleaning up

After someone else,

That is slavery.

You don’t need chains

You don’t need a whip

To call it peculiar.

You don’t need politicians 

Calling it a way of life,

You don’t need a state

To exist

To affirm its existence,

You don’t need to breech

The sacred tenets 

Of a constitution 

In order to fight

To preserve

Tyranny.

Reality

Isn’t a set of words.

It is the functioning world around you, 

It doesn’t exist

Out of the good will

And good intentions

Of those who want to believe 

They’re right.

It exists as all society 

Experiences it,

Not as you would hope,

Not as you believe,

But in the real world.

If you believe

You are fighting

For a better world,

Reflect the better world

You want to see.

Don’t preach

And then wallow

In your comforts.

Don’t complain

And then relish

Your easy delights.

Don’t chastise

And then lazily reflect

On meaningless indulgences.

If the better world you seek

Exists in small pockets

And you erode the greater good

In order to fill them,

Then you are hollowing out

In your hollow virtue,

The wholeness

Of the world,

You are emptying it out.

You are not the inheritors

Of Lincoln,

You are the critics

Who hounded him

In the North

In the Union.

Because that was where

He was most hated.

That is what they call

A martyr.

That is what they call a hero.

Anything less

Is everything freedom 

Opposes.

#1035. Bonds of Freedom 6

What exactly 

Were the colonies 

Trying 

To accomplish?

Well, let’s 

Call a spade

A spade:

What was 

Massachusetts?

It wasn’t 

Merely

The imposition 

But the idea

That they had

No self-determination,

No right

To settle 

Their own fate.

These were colonists

Who had lived there

For generations,

For a hundred years.

They were still forced

To relinquish control

To a system

That operated

An ocean away.

They had developed 

A thriving economy,

A way of life,

A culture,

A people

That were different 

From those

Who still claimed them

As citizens.

Citizens of what?

When empires colonize 

They tend to impose

Upon the natives

And it’s the natives

Who usually strike

For independence.

In the colonies 

The natives

Wanted nothing

But to be left alone,

And behaved accordingly,

Including participating 

In strategic alliances 

Even with their enemies 

If it suited them

At the time.

History still struggles 

Determining

That outcome.

But the colonies?

They didn’t see themselves 

As colonies,

Certainly not in Massachusetts.

They saw themselves

As communities.

Uniting the colonies 

Was difficult.

Giving them

An identity 

Ended up becoming 

A political statement 

That changed the world.

And is still 

Little understood 

Today.