1043. Bonds of Freedom 13 (Finale)

In 1812

We conclude our delve 

Into the bonds of freedom

With Madison: we need him

To secure the independence,

The superintendence

Of basic dignity

To end the malignity

Against the human spirit,

To finally hear it,

The clarion call

To end the fall

Of man.

Madison,

And the War of 1812,

The very garrison

Of the Revolution,

Seldom acknowledged 

As a resolution,

The war dismissed

As unnecessary,

Nothing more than a fist,

An embarrassment 

A fiasco,

The last experiment 

Against Canada,

For which the White House burned,

And Dolley earned

Her image in history,

While Oliver Hazzard Perry

On Lake Erie,

Made merry

In a moment of triumph

And then Jackson

Sounded the klaxon

Of what would follow,

Which we have

Ever since

Failed to nav,

That pernicious popular folly,

By golly!

Still misleading us

As to the true course,

The true source

Of our glory,

What Americans have been chasing,

The allegory

Of the story.

But we still seek our quarry!

1042. Bonds of Freedom 12

France came to explore.

France was different 

From England or Spain.

There’s no popular narrative 

About its New World,

Except that it happened,

And that eventually,

There was a reckoning 

With its English rival,

As so much of their

Histories

To that point

Concluded,

Again and again,

This time

While Dramatic developments

Occurred

On two sides

Of the Atlantic Ocean.

The crisis

That was America

Became France’s.

That’s the story

That emerged,

A tale of two countries.

Before the Revolution 

In North America 

There was something they called

The French and Indian War,

Which is chiefly remembered 

As the war Washington fought 

Before the Revolution.

Funny enough,

The French became 

His chief military allies

In the Revolution.

And then Independence was won,

And then France fell apart.

Spectacularly.

Then Napoleon happened,

And a result of that

Was the Louisiana Purchase,

Which greatly expanded 

The scope of the new nation

And marked 

The end

Of French ambition.

In Canada

There’s a province

That sometimes dreams

Of independence 

And it’s the French one,

And its existence 

In the last part of the New World

Still lingering in English concepts 

Led to my ancestors 

Completing the journey 

From France

To the United States.

I still try to understand 

How this past

Shaped

My present.

#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.