Democracy Is Not Dead

 

This is only the fifth blog since my return to the front, so to speak. From time to time I return to material I wrote in the past, often for myself as a way of keeping a record of events and my response to them. Reading through some older things, I found this, written after the 2020 election results came in, but before January 6.

It goes:

As we waited to see how the transition of power from Donald Trump to Joe Biden would play out, Linday Graham, that beacon of convenience, declared that Republicans had to change the rules or no Republican would ever again be elected President. The whole waiting game was a scary, scary moment. Many of us feared that the peaceful transition of power simply would not happen. It seemed that the honor system had been blown to bits. Trump seemed to be searching for ways to justify overturning the election results, or tossing them aside altogether. We speculated on all the ways that could happen and wondered if we were strong enough and clever enough to stop him. And yet. The election itself was a refreshing boost of democratic confirmation.

I wrote the following poem on November 17, 2020, two weeks after the election. It was inspired in no small part by Ingrid Jonker's brilliant poem, “The Child Is Not Dead,” and, as always, by the incredible words of Wilfred Owen, one of my soldier-poets of World War One, “All the poet can do is warn.”

Democracy is not Dead

Democracy is not dead.

She rides upon the millions

Of restless, marching feet,

Demanding to be heard,

Mis-quoting Twain, “Reports

Of my demise are just a bit

Premature—be vigilant!”

Democracy is not dead.

She shouts alongside the millions:

I have spoken, let me speak!

Her epitaph, though written,

Lies inside the editor's desk

Unpublished.

Her voice, though trembling,

Has found renewed strength but is

Caught in her hesitation,

Looking for words, needing but a few.

Democracy is not dead.

Her body shows the bruises

Of every time she stumbled

But the multitude each time

Has picked her up and set her back

Upon the terrible long path to Golgotha

While Liberty awaits her

To share her fate.

Democracy is not dead

Though there are so, so many

Who would make her so.