The Politics of No

Joel 2:1-2, 12-17

No, we are not bewhiskered woodsmen posing
with a fabled misery whip 12-feet long
emerging from the sepia history of real men

or frugal, gaunt survivalists riding out
the Great Depression or the khaki war machine
fighting to the death against the Axis powers

or fearless astronauts landing on the moon.
As the swaggering first citizens of a unipolar world,
we are soft from indolent years of privileged ease.

We are soft without a great enemy to fight
so we look within and fight among ourselves.
We harden into corpulence and intellectual sloth

as nimbler nations strive to take us down,
not by the savagery of war, but with whispered lies
designed to divide us into two contending camps

dueling to the death of the great American experiment
of broad-shouldered accomplishment of big things.
No, my friend, we are not that nation anymore.

Ash Wednesday
February 22, 2023