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.
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