I just came from posting the flag on the front of the house, I saluted it as I should for it is our flag day. Commemorating the act of a continental congress to define a union of colonies, now states that will build a great nation with ideals that all men are created equal and none should be above the law. On June 14, 1777, this congress decided that the equality of these colonies shall be represented in thirteen stripes, and the original thirteen stars on a blue field, a field with room for many more, many that will be welcomed to this land, this nation, and with reverence we’ll abide by the principles put forth by men who risked their lives to sign for independence and fairness and opportunity for the pursuit of happiness… and yet the pursuit of equality under the law continues. Today I read a poem, that asks for forgiveness for our lack of generosity, for our thrashing of this dream of equality as we have practiced in these last so many centuries. We know better now we think, yet read this poem from 1920, and ask if it is no different today than 100 years ago? I had to find out what Darkwater was, and through the Gutenberg Project https://www.gutenberg.org/files/15210/15210-h/15210-h.htm
I found the book published in 1920. Called Darkwater by W.E.B Du Bois. It is amazing… I included a poem from the end of Darkwater below…
I did not think… I did not know…
What pale excuse is this I make
In answer to my brother’s woe,
Age-long, for deep injustice sake!
Across his mute and patient soul,
While I have gone my heedless way,
The shadows of a fate might roll
That deepened night and darkened day.
But I have read a burning page,
That glowed with white and soul-wrung fire,
And now no more I may engage
My conscience with a feeble hire.
For all the wrong I did not heed,
Chance-born in happier paths to live,
I cry unto my brother’s need
One word of love and shame… forgive!
A Hymn to the Peoples
O Truce of God!
And primal meeting of the Sons of Man,
Foreshadowing the union of the World!
From all the ends of earth we come!
Old Night, the elder sister of the Day,
Mother of Dawn in the golden East,
Meets in the misty twilight with her brood,
Pale and black, tawny, red and brown,
The mighty human rainbow of the world,
Spanning its wilderness of storm.
Softly in sympathy the sunlight falls,
Rare is the radiance of the moon;
And on the darkest midnight blaze the stars—
The far-flown shadows of whose brilliance
Drop like a dream on the dim shores of Time,
Forecasting Days that are to these
As day to night.
So sit we all as one.
So, gloomed in tall and stone-swathed groves,
The Buddha walks with Christ!
And Al-Koran and Bible both be holy!
Almighty Word!
In this Thine awful sanctuary,
First and flame-haunted City of the Widened World,
Assoil us, Lord of Lands and Seas!
We are but weak and wayward men,
Distraught alike with hatred and vainglory;
Prone to despise the Soul that breathes within—
High visioned hordes that lie and steal and kill,
Sinning the sin each separate heart disclaims,
Clambering upon our riven, writhing selves,
Besieging Heaven by trampling men to Hell!
We be blood-guilty!
Lo, our hands be red!
Not one may blame the other in this sin!
But here—here in the white
Silence of the Dawn,
Before the Womb of Time,
With bowed hearts all flame and shame,
We face the birth-pangs of a world:
We hear the stifled cry of Nations all but born—
The wail of women ravished of their stunted brood!
We see the nakedness of
Toil, the poverty of Wealth,
We know the Anarchy of Empire, and doleful Death of Life!
And hearing, seeing, knowing all, we cry:
Save us, World-Spirit, from our lesser selves!
Grant us that war and hatred cease,
Reveal our souls in every race and hue!
Help us, O Human God, in this Thy Truce,
To make Humanity divine!
