Tired of outrage, feeling unsettled is no better

[lostnfound]

Five years of an affront to all that matters.

Retributions to the good guys wear on us.

The news has exploded into confusion...not the TV news, which is all fluff and propaganda, all the time...but the news of the Internet. The Beast in Washington gets uglier every day. I long for simple news: indictments, resignation, an end to the war. I WISH the Congressman Jefferson story could be simply "one corrupt politician stealing $100K for himself got caught". Good, go to jail, do not pass go. Double and triple and quadruple layers infest every damn idea. The elections are broken, can we get them fixed?

I just woke from a nightmare. In the nightmare I was traveling with my child by airplane, and due to missed connections I was scrambling through numerous airports for days. Wrapped up in finding my way through unfamiliar terrain and dense confusion, even clambering through behind-the-scenes baggage transfer areas, feeling exhausted, I suddenly remember: where is my child?? Not at my side. In this nightmare, I lose him twice -- the first time, for a few hours, and when I found him he was climbing across conveyer belts to come to me. The second time, I realize that I haven't seen him for 10 hours and 2 cities, and this time, I simply wake up from the nightmare.

My responsbility is to hold his little hand, no matter where I go. I'm definitely not supposed to stop moving: on a journey, he is growing and learning to navigate, and besides, I have another job to do -- not my assigned task in the ant colony, but still another. But this simple trip we were taking turned into an ordeal, and his little hand slipped out of mine. How I want to get on the plane and go right where I need to go, to trust that it will get me there, that we will face no more wandering behind the scenes in unfamilar places. By the way, these heavy machinery areas aren't safe for children.

This wandering life is not what I am accustomed to. Perhaps I need to learn from the nomads, and travel light.

Should I hide from him the fact that we are lost? Shall I teach him only truth? We are Endowed By Our Creator to pursue material goods. Once upon a time my task was to Believe, now it is to Shop. Somewhere on this unsettled journey I hope to stumble across a useful role as a citizen, or a clue to the pursuit of a decent heritage to hand down to the next generation of Americans. The heritage of living in a country with a constitution, a bill of rights and reasonably good government. To vote and know that it is counted, to hike in a national park. It is my dream and my job as a mother and as a citizen to preserve these things for tomorrow. It is my job not to let that little hand slip away from me either, while I am attending to the tasks of a citizen traveller.

I'll close with an excerpt from a poem by Drew Dillinger, who speaks it as such:

It's 3:23 in the morning and I'm awake
because my great, great, grandchildren won't let me sleep.
My great, great, grandchildren ask me in dreams
what did you do while the planet was plundered?
what did you do when the earth was unraveling?
surely you did something when the seasons started failing
as the mammals, reptiles and birds were all dying?
did you fill the streets with protest when democracy was stolen?
what did you do
once
you
knew

[Warpy]

1. Sometimes just knowing how my generally pissed off attitude

is being shared by most of the people I share this city with, and by extension, this country, is enough for me these days.

Change is in the wind. Whether it's good change or bad change, who knows?

But it's coming. There is nothing THEY can do to stop it now.

[babylonsister]

2. Thanks, lostnfound. We fear for our children. I

also really like Dillinger's poem. Thanks for sharing.

[Frustratedlady]

3. I have already apologized to my family...

...for the awful mess I will be leaving them. Not a mess I was aware of for many years, but one which I am frightened of, now. Do I have enough time to make things right? I don't know. I only know I need a lot of help, but so many people aren't listening. I am not young enough to physically help rebuild/restore our country, but I can scream at the top of my lungs of the need for reform and cleansing.

Our country has come through so many tragedies...can we overcome the leadership we have today? They are our tragedy du jour and forever more if we don't reclaim our wonderful country soon.

[monarch]

4. Tell us more about Drew Dillinger.

He sounds like our kind of guy and I couldn't find out much about him.

Great post, by the way.

[lostnfound]

5. Here's the rest of it

Poet/activist Drew Dellinger from "A COMEDY SPECIAL : Behind every terrorist there is a Bush"
which was a live recording of a benefit for the International Inquiry into 9-11. (It also had David Rovics singing: Who would Jesus bomb?, and if you happen to want to hear the whole special, you can find it at http://www.radio4all.net/proginfo.php?id=8606)

The poem seems to border on paranoid delusions at time, but the third stanza reminds me of the Paul Simon song 'The Boy in the Bubble' ('These are the days of miracle and wonder..'). We are indeed 'the flesh of stars' (elements of our body had to originate from exploded stars, according to scientists).

Poem by Drew Dellinger

It's 3:23 in the morning and I'm awake
because my great, great, grandchildren won't let me sleep.
My great, great, grandchildren ask me in dreams
what did you do while the planet was plundered?
what did you do when the earth was unraveling?
surely you did something when the seasons started failing
as the mammals, reptiles and birds were all dying?
did you fill the streets with protest when democracy was stolen?
what did you do
once
you
knew

i'm riding home on the coma train
i'm riding home on the coma train
i've got the voice of the milky way in my dreams
i have teams of scientists feeding me data daily
and pleading I immediately turn it into poetry

i want justice-consciousness reached
by people in range of secret frequencies contained in my speech
i am the desirous earth equidistant to the underworld and the flesh of the stars
i am everything already lost
the moment the universe turns transparent and all the light shoots through the cosmos
i use words to instigate silence
i am a hieroglyphic stairway in a buried Mayan city
suddenly exposed by a hurricane
a satellite circling earth finding
dinosaur bones in the gobi desert
i am telescopes that see back in time
i am the precession of the equinoxes
the magnetism of the spiraling sea
i'm riding home on the coma train
with the voice of the milky way in my dreams
i am myths where violets blossom from blood like dying and rising gods
i'm the boundary of time, soul encountering soul and tongues of fire

it's 3:23 in the morning and I'm awake
because my great great grandchildren won't let me sleep
my great great grandchildren ask me in dreams,
what did you do while the earth was unravelling
i want justice-consciousness reached
by people in range of secret frequencies contained in my speech

and because I was curious:

Satellite searches for dinosaur bones

and

Hieroglyphic stairway exposed by a hurricane in either August or September of 2001
More on the stairway & the meaning of the hieroglyphics
http://www.vanderbilt.edu/Register/Sep16_02/20020919demarest.html
http://www.arcl.ed.ac.uk/a1/stoppress/stop_1254.htm

[monarch]

6. Interesting!

Thanks very much.