I cannot tell if the festivities are
\nToo deep within me
\nOr too far outside me to experience.
\nEven though I am unable to experience them,
\nI feel their presence.<\/p>\n
I feel the festivities of my land,
\nCelebrating two centuries of
\nGrowth, development, and ravishing;
\nTwo centuries of rape,
\nMurder and profiteering;
\nTwo whole centuries of defiling,
\nMastery and decay.<\/p>\n
But a young people, who would call
\nThemselves a people, celebrate.
\nI am of those people,
\nBut not those people.
\nThey are my people,
\nBut I am not theirs.<\/p>\n
Two centuries of mindlessness,
\nTwo centuries of invasion,
\nTwo centuries of mateship,
\nTwo centuries of sweat, pain, grief, blood;
\nTwo centuries to destroy
\nThese millennia of heritage.<\/p>\n
And I am not there.<\/p>\n
My mind wanders the plains of
\nThe outback, wades the creeks of the ranges;
\nMy heart rambles through the
\nSands and the bush and the scrub.
\nI commune with the forces to which
\nI am foreign.<\/p>\n
I remain foreign.<\/p>\n
As a foreigner at home, I cannot celebrate
\nThese two long moments;
\nLong in time of man, but only
\nMoments in time of the land.
\nMy heart and mind and soul
\nAre at home,
\nThey are aware of festivities
\nBut cannot partake in them. <\/p>\n
Have these two long moments been
\nA loss or a gain?
\nIrrefutable as they may be,
\nTwo centuries have brought about
\nA pride, unsurpassed.<\/p>\n
A pride, surpassing memories of
\nThe crimes of yesterday,
\nA pride, encompassing the
\nCrimes of yesterday.
\nI share that pride,
\nAnd am proud of the country I call home.<\/p>\n
What crimes can there be as history follows
\nThe meandering course of time?
\nThe crimes of nations, the crimes
\nOf corruption, the crimes of redemption,
\nThe crimes of survival.<\/p>\n
But who survives?<\/p>\n
One people invades and plunders;
\nAnother continues.
\nOne people grows and expands;
\nAnother continues.
\nOne people becomes great;
\nAnother continues.
\nOne people catabolizes;
\nAnother continues.
\nOne people laughs and corrupts;
\nAnother would have continued.
\nOne people usurps another,
\nAnd another is no more.
\nOne people outgrows and destroys itself;
\nAnother will continue.<\/p>\n
Was a heritage lost or a nation gained?
\nIt was not our heritage
\nAnd we did not lose it.
\nIt was not their nation,
\nAnd they did not gain it.<\/p>\n
And I am not there.<\/p>\n
Was a people lost and a heritage gained?
\nThey were not our people,
\nAnd we did not lose them.
\nIt was not our heritage
\nAnd we did not gain it.<\/p>\n
And I am not there.<\/p>\n
Was a land lost and a people gained?
\nIt was not our land
\nAnd we did not gain it.
\nThey were not our people
\nAnd we did not gain them.<\/p>\n
And I am not there.<\/p>\n
Not being there I see more clearly now,
\nThe course of nations,
\nThe course of peoples,
\nThe course of colors,
\nThe course of races.<\/p>\n
I have seen peoples more blind than
\nOurs, more victimized than theirs;
\nMore corrupt than ours,
\nAnd more lost than theirs.
\nI have seen worse crimes,
\nAnd lesser punishments.
\nI have seen courses of nations,
\nAnd the course of our own. <\/p>\n
Our own differs only in time and place
\nFrom those of the past,
\nFrom the courses of any blind society,
\nOr any lost people.
\nOur own crimes differ only in time and place
\nFrom crimes of the past,
\nAnd from crimes of the future:
\nAll still are crimes.<\/p>\n
As long as there are crimes
\nThere will be more crimes.<\/p>\n
As long as there are peoples,
\nThere will be crimes.<\/p>\n
Two centuries to celebrate.<\/p>\n
And I am not there,<\/p>\n
Though my heart remains in the only
\nLand I know how to call home.
\nMy heart shares the pride of a land,
\nBut the shame of a people,
\nThe pride of a nation,
\nAnd the shame of a race.<\/p>\n
Do I know I have the shame of a race?
\nIt may not be my own shame but
\nI cannot be freed from it.
\nThey are not my crimes, but I
\nCannot be excused from them.<\/p>\n
Though I empathize with our victims,
\nI wonder who the victims are.
\nIs it he who wanders, in
\nSpiritual harmony with his land,
\nIn fullness of life and of existence?
\nHe has lost a world, but not a spirit.<\/p>\n
Or are we victims of our own hedonism,
\nVictims of our own indulgence?
\nAre we spiraling downward, ever
\nDownward, frenzied with material desires?
\nWe have gained a world, but lost a spirit.<\/p>\n
We may take away a land and destroy
\nA race,
\nBut we cannot take away a spirit,
\nOr destroy a people.<\/p>\n
Only a people can destroy themselves.<\/p>\n
Let’s celebrate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I cannot tell if the festivities are
Too deep within me
Or too far outside me to experience.
Even though I am unable to experience them,
I feel their presence.<\/p>\n
I feel the festivities of my land,
Celebrating two centuries of
Growth, development, and ravishing;
Two centuries of rape,
Murder and profiteering;
\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-497","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poems","category-social"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/smpoetry.amigotico.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/497","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/smpoetry.amigotico.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/smpoetry.amigotico.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smpoetry.amigotico.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smpoetry.amigotico.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=497"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/smpoetry.amigotico.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/497\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":575,"href":"https:\/\/smpoetry.amigotico.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/497\/revisions\/575"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/smpoetry.amigotico.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smpoetry.amigotico.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smpoetry.amigotico.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}