Before Us The Land of Milk and Honey

Many of us have survived the spiritual wasteland which America tends towards. We only want to die in peace knowing we have done our part to save our land from spiritual destruction. That's a bit premature for you and me though! I have to live out my life countering meaninglessness, despair, and hopelessness and if I have to die anytime soon even then not give up the struggle.

I hope my children will enter into the new age dawning for humankind. To me Barack Obama is our Joshua battling the forces of darkness while my generation becomes an aging Moses atop Mt. Nebo. One day it's likely my children will hope the same for their children and grandchildren. Is this part of what it means to be an American?

We in America live in the land of milk and honey (as far as the rest of the world is concerned). The promised land though at times is also a spiritual wasteland in which greed and materialism reduce all to shambles.

Occasionally, I reflect that I have lived my adult life outside the promised land of milk and honey (my perception) and deal with dreams and longings for better times (which may materialize and evaporate as they do for many of my fellow citizens).

Our spiritual rebirth is a necessary generational task which includes our escape from the enslavements of a rampant capitalism (the land of the rich for the rich and to hell with those who would mess with our rapacious acquisition of wealth). I do not say this to condemn capitalism, rather to curb and soften its excesses and provide respite from the spiritual impoverishment of my country.

Recently, through a Time magazine article, I realized that I have lived long enough at age 59 to see how I have participated in my writing in dialogue with American cultural mainstream.[1]

I have written unintentionally over time a sequence of poems[2] having to do with rebellion, quest, self-denial, want and exile with the Exodus story as the basic metaphor for the human condition.


[1] See specific observations noted in "How Moses Shaped America," Time, October 12, 2009, at 48-50, by Bruce Feiler (an adaptation by Bruce Feiler of his booklength exposition America's Prophet: Moses and the American Story).


[2]Poems in this sequence are available by email request to this blogger and are listed out here:

A Birth mother’s love
If the night watch should fail
Can I be so bereft of thee
Ephemeral flower of the dry hills
The Meandering path
Part I. Jackals and mirages
Part II. Moving on
Part III. Conspirators
Part IV. The Quest
Part V. The Scout
Tribute not sought