Pity The Nation

Many people in our country are already suffering—before the budget slashing kicks them in the gut. The immigrants among them are now pushed onto airplanes—or maybe pushed off, mid-flight, who knows…or sent to Guantanamo. Will anyone really know if they arrive? Who knows?

Are they criminals? Can anyone say? If they’re known criminals, why the hell are so many being yanked from workplaces instead of penitentiaries? I’ve heard they don’t have enough criminals, not enough red meat to parade in front of the hungry, cheering MAGA crowd, so they’re grabbing anyone who’s easy enough to grab. “Let’s make it happen” he tells his minions. Let’s make America great again. Yeah, identical promises were made in another country in 1933.

Here’s a poem I’d like to share called “Pity The Nation” by Lawrence Ferlinghetti. It’s an adaptation of Khalil Gibran’s 1933 poem of the same name.

PITY THE NATION

Pity the nation whose people are sheep

And whose shepherds mislead them
Pity the nation whose leaders are liars

Whose sages are silenced

And whose bigots haunt the airwaves
Pity the nation that raises not its voice

Except to praise conquerers

And acclaim the bully as hero

And aims to rule the world

By force and by torture
Pity the nation that knows

No other language but its own

And no other culture but its own
Pity the nation whose breath is money

And sleeps the sleep of the too well fed
Pity the nation oh pity the people

who allow their rights to erode

and their freedoms to be washed away
My country, tears of thee
Sweet land of liberty!

Keep scrolling if you’re interested in reading the original poem:

PITY THE NATION
By Khalil Gibran, 1933

Pity the nation that is full of beliefs and empty of religion.

Pity the nation that wears a cloth it does not weave, eats a bread it does not harvest, and drinks a wine that flows not from its own wine-press.

Pity the nation that acclaims the bully as hero, and that deems the glittering conqueror bountiful.

Pity the nation that despises a passion in its dream, yet submits in its awakening.

Pity the nation that raises not its voice save when it walks in a funeral, boasts not except among its ruins, and will rebel not save when its neck is laid between the sword and the block.

Pity the nation whose statesman is a fox, whose philosopher is a juggler, and whose art is the art of patching and mimicking.

Pity the nation that welcomes its new ruler with trumpetings, and farewells him with hootings, only to welcome another with trumpetings again.

Pity the nation whose sages are dumb with years and whose strong men are yet in the cradle.

Pity the nation divided into fragments, each fragment deeming itself a nation.