Eight Minutes Forty-Six Seconds.
By eileenleyva
@eileenleyva (27555)
Philippines
June 5, 2020 1:38am CST
"Bowed by the weight of centuries he leans...
The emptiness of ages in his face, ...
Who made him dead to rapture and despair, ...
Stolid and stunned, ..."
Verses from American poet Edwin Markham, written a century ago, and yet uncannily depicts America today.
I remembered the poem I studied in high school while watching the memorial for George Floyd. Hundreds of thousands marched, and knelt, and observed exactly eight minutes and forty-six seconds of silence, the amount of time George Floyd was asphyxiated to death.
America the great nation has long been dead with social injustice. That eight minutes and forty-six seconds, inadvertently, spurred America back to life.
Markham questions.... and offers a solution....
" O masters, lords and rulers in all lands,
is this the handiwork you give to God,
This monstrous thing distorted and soul-quenched ?
How will you ever straighten up this shape;
Touch it again with immortality;
Give back the upward looking and the light;
Rebuild in it the music and the dream;
Make right the immemorial infamies,
Perfidious wrongs, immedicable woes?"
Get up, America. Rise again.
3 people like this
2 responses
@DocAndersen (54399)
• United States
5 Jun 20
i find myself wondering what if decency won out that day. Perfect poem to share - do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, Rage against the passing of the light!
1 person likes this
@eileenleyva (27555)
• Philippines
6 Jun 20
Dylan Thomas' verses are often quoted. I love the whole poem. The millennials must actually beg a prayer from their aging folks right now - "And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light."
1 person likes this
@eileenleyva (27555)
• Philippines
13 Jun 20
@DocAndersen To each his own.
To stay unaffected and complacent suggests complicity and vested interest. As you say - foolhardy.
To rage against the dying of the light suggests passion and courage. This is my choice.
1 person likes this
@DocAndersen (54399)
• United States
6 Jun 20
@eileenleyva we spent hours with that poem years ago when I was dreaming of being a poet. To rage against light, that seems pointless, but to not rage seems foolhardy.
1 person likes this
