Apology To The Future

- for my grandson

I’m sorry, so sorry. I saw
our imp-selves lifted up
-and this selfish meanness
- as it was happening... I
thought there was too little ‘one’
could do about ‘it:’ -this loss of
our holy beauty of being, the failure
of our mere private integrity,
of being a united people. I saw
the last days of social belonging,
the last of public joint commitment.
I tried, tried so little. Did what
I thought I could. Risked little.

I see, now, I was too much a robot
of the problem, thinking in that ‘one’
demoralized math of the time, even
with my solo finger in the dyke
– slave to that head-born head count!

Why was I in conformity?
to that labelled cut of cloth?
to what really didn’t matter?
when I was raised to courage
biblical enough to know how
by an inspired one, with a just few,
hosts of enemy can be put to rout?

I know! I failed.
Failed to engender enough faith
to lead with the brave and right.

So I saw roads swell to this
bloated soul-snarl. Saw outdoor
villages empty for shopping centres
as internally-built as prisons.

I grieved, uselessly, as I heard
that germ of our traffic subdividing,
multiplying like an amplified virus.

I saw the land concreted down
and paved with developed intentions,
the creeks piped to a fascist music.

I saw education become graduation,
debate, ideas, in abdication; saw
people let the Masters in Business Rule
gladly, as if that was learning! Saw
flow charts become virtual rivers for
future drought; saw suburban universities
swelling with Orwellian sustainabilty
courses; saw Religion become a fertile
prosperity cult! and spirituality become
a party balloon. I watched as demon
fisherman of the souls dressed normally
as a businessman in its suit and tie.

I was raised in earth, seeking divinities,
but I let the mass common-low culture
overwhelm me, let this dense conformity
cower me, for shame! Curse this bought,
this shopped-for shame, my son,
my scion! Curse this comfort, this
skein of our satisfaction that is drunk
too merrily as it rots our souls.

Courage be on you to grow in truth
and stature and find anger in
my dust to fight this enemy occupation
of our lands and souls. And when
I die, lower me that day
in no cute Lawn Cemetery, but put
my flesh in a public box and declare
me a Missing Link, the Link
of the Devolution from devotion
to decadence, then preach a hot
sermon against mere seedy being,
mine or any other. Be inspired
as the Avenging Angel at the last.

Preach of the reality of Death and Dying,
of the saints who set example in brave lives
to a brave dying for the cause of truth - as
the seed for the germination of
the other world in this one, to sprout
the bravest words of transcendence
out of the garden of your soul.


31 May 2006- Jan 2007 © Wayne David Knoll