It is long past the time for all people to stand and demand of themselves to be infused with a steel core to uphold their wobbly selves.

We have stood by and watched the principles upon which we have built our lives and our children’s heritage broken and by pieces swept away.  It is long past the time now for all to take stock and question ourselves and ask upon what is it we stand.

All of us can go far back and some new ones, not so far, to see that we all come from distant shores.  We became Americans no matter our beginnings.  So many nations, so many cultures have formed what we consider to be these United States.  How long can we be satisfied to be less than we once were, faults and all?

Lest we expect less from ourselves, we must all work in what ways we can to restore our respect for our heritage which includes all peoples.  There is no partisanship when it comes to bestowing honor and trust and courtesies upon those who differ from us.

Less is demeaning what we are; lowering ourselves to what has taken centuries to build to make our country a leader among  people whose ambitions were to emulate what the United States symbolized.

It took dreams that took hard work and thought toward becoming a haven that the statue of liberty was gifted.  The world watched us and marveled.  And we became the heaven possible upon which people built their lives in this country.

We work now to restore those dreams not only for those seeking to flee despotism but for ourselves now to guard what we have known to be our country.  Or our dream will go begging.

The Strange Bequest. . .

There was a man, a slim man,
whose head was bedecked with a white cloud,
and whose eyes saw dreams
he could not articulate.

He sat one day staring into space and
when I questioned him, he said,
‘I am sitting and watching the grass grow.’
I hesitated far too long and have lived to regret it.

I wish the courage had been mine
to have asked him to share his dreams with me.
For he bequeathed to me a mind that does not rest.
I have the thought that his father and father before him

wrestled the same misty vision
which now is mine to set in motion.
I question this strange bequest for I have not
the staunch heart required to lay to rest

my ancestor’s  anguish.  Papa, I plead now,
to replace my heart with hot ore, inject me with a vial
of celestial courage  and fuse my spine with
with tempered steel. . . .

There is so little time. . . .