Not once have today’s seers said what I saw with my own eyes.
I’m almost sixty. I’ve met many many people in my life and, unusually, I took most into politics and belief. I’ve learned what good is and what bad can do. I can judge this clearly. Some of us dilute, too many take, and a few destroy. But please, my friends are friends and my fellow souls are true and good.
Then why is it the best of us can become the worst of us? Why the wealthy keep and why the eager cheat? Why is treachery so common in the poor on the corner where trust is better? Why are pennies important to the comfortable? Why is betrayal uncovered in the dark? Why are talents wasted or skill withheld or guile copied or weakness gilded? These are not God’s questions. These are mine and yours.
I don’t see sincerity in Sarah. I see a novice taken far. This is a good thing but not a leader. This is enriching and could be warm, if enrichment and warmth were offered. One night, the siren. The other, unkempt. There is this high point in all of us, but a leader keeps it, and keeps it not for rank but for us.
So many eye to eye miracles I’ve shared and gripped hands in true alliance. So many good wits traded and pledged to honor, good works, fair exchange, to a fist I won’t tell you, but not pride to war nor did I ever take need to blood. What I see is grand and great and infinite humanity. I do not see argument across a border nor corruption through a door nor sixpacks in the kitchen. I do not see prize and privy. I look for needing me and hope for it and make it ready. I do not make appointments with the arrogant. I do not intrude on fair and loving. A nod can say all I need to know. A night can be forever when we talk.
These days, our politicians take everything and leave too little. I am not deciding whether they meet an enemy or favor a friend or hide a gift. I am not voting for their integrity or honesty or clarity or teamwork. What leader asks if not already all these things? If I want their arrangements, I don’t want their community. If I want their audacity, I don’t want their argument. If I want their bravery, I don’t want their war.
Not once are today’s planks sturdy for all of us and if not for all us why?
Not once are today’s promises for all of us and if not for all of us why?
Not once do today’s small triumphs bring us to our feet and never to our need. We are not Angels on a pin and today’s framed and focused stump are tiny and false and cannot fit our nation.
Jefferson did and Lincoln tried and Franklin tied us back together but Reagan didn’t free us and Bush has burned us and we are beginning our nation again.
Elections are not a battle front and it’s not power we’re selecting. Fill those halls until they are ours again. Respect the players and the arguments so then greater candidates will be discovered. Raise up the issues so then we lift our representatives. Then out the tired and the stupid and the selfish until we have the enduring on top. Gather until all of us are governing. Then sweep away the fraud. Take the resolute and the devout so then throw out the lazy and the lucky.
Be tradition by becoming it.
Stand on hills until they’re mountains and be American again.