Flags for Amasa

I will take a flag to plant at your feet

Where softness of sky and earthy ground meet

To mark where the noblest soldier died

And where his wistful widow cried.

Children of the chosen land,

Come to rest on speaking sand--

Hearts held here on fragrant shore,

Home is here forevermore.

I will take a flag to my Descan land

Where lonely sea stretches to golden sand

To mark where the noblest soldier freed

A people in chains by his mighty deed.

Child of the chosen land,

Come and rest on speaking sand--

Hold heart here on fragrant shore,

Make home here forevermore.

I will take a flag to keep within me

Through burning of flame and rush of cold sea

To mark where you will always dwell

Though all the land is wrapped in hell.

Come back to the chosen land,

Please come rest on speaking sand—

Give us back our fragrant shore,

Give us home forevermore!

I will take a flag to carry to all

To show to poor beggars and rich who fall

To mark where your life still lives on

And carry your love in eternal dawn.

Defended Praise

Praise the Lord, for He is good;
He grants deliverance from the sword--
He sends bright angels in darkened wood,
Defends from demons with mighty word.

He protects the warrior's fragile life,
Even when all is surrendered for dead--
He lifts us all up out of our strife,
And lets our hungry souls be fed.

The Lord is good to the undeserving,
Saving and blessing beyond compare--
His loyalty is now and ever unswerving,
His love ever with us in hardship to share.

In His presence, we are never alone--
Never do we toil without a guide.
From start of day till day is done,
His wondrous love is glorified.

Paradise

You ask me what's paradise?
You ask me what greater slice
Of joy there is beyond this,
Beyond scenery and abstract bliss?

The endless exploration of the sea,
The joyous reunion of brother and me,
And endless stunts, through endless lights,
Stunts for art, and not for fights.

The ceaseless renewal of friends long gone,
Meeting them on my grassy lawn
Where I've planted trees of fruits unknown,
Lovely plants my hands have grown.

The travel through the endless stars,
Beyond red gates of fiery Mars
To see and rejoice throughout all space,
Rejoicing in my God's good grace.

You ask me what's paradise?
It is a much greater slice
Of joy than the island I miss,
And full of endless, timeless bliss.

Tavern Reform

Dramatis Personae: Luther

Bishop

Scholar

Innkeeper

Innkeeper bustles, doing innkeeper kinds of things. She pauses to dust the painting, then stares at the painting for a moment, lost. Reverie broken by knock on door. Goes to answer.

Innkeeper: Come on in, sir, do take a seat and rest a while. I see you are a scholar; aren’t you a long ways from your university? What brings you all the way out here to my tavern?

Scholar: It is actually your tavern I’ve come to see. That painting here, above the table, is one I’ve studied for a long time and have finally tracked down to your inn.

Innkeeper: Oh, that? I’m holding it here for a friend of mine who will take it to the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin—Gemaldegalerie Berlin. There, more people will be able to enjoy it than just the bleary-eyed people who frequent my tavern.

Scholar: It does deserve to be seen. What do you know of this painting?

Innkeeper: Sighs I love looking at this painting, but I hate to say it, its origins are unknown to me. I don’t even know what amazing man painted it.

Scholar: Smiles That would be the Dutch painter Pieter Bruegel the Elder. He painted this one in 1559 on an oak panel—but of course, you can see that, as well as the beautiful oil paint he used.

Innkeeper: Ah, so that’s why it’s so heavy!

Scholar: So true. This one depicts over a hundred proverbs on one canvas.

Innkeeper: I knew that. The poor man hitting his head against the brick wall always strikes me on a busy night here at the tavern. Speaking of which—

Door knock again.

Innkeeper: Two this time, and quarreling so! Please, sirs, sit down here with this good scholar. I’m sure you’ll have plenty to talk about.

Bishop: That’s for sure! This fool Martin Luther has been trying to convince me that I should get a wife!

Innkeeper: Really? But you are a man of God. How can he say you could possibly ever have a wife?

Scholar: Interesting. . . with all due respect, your greatness, it really does not make much sense to me how we see so many holy men lose the benefits of family life for their ministry.

Luther: We see also how many a poor priest is encumbered with a woman and children and burdened in his conscience, and no one does anything to help him.

Innkeeper: Oh, I’ve heard of such scandals shared many a night over brimming cups of ale here in my tavern. Rumors abound that this, that, or the other man might the son of a priest. What do I care, so long as they continue to stay here and pay me their fines?

Scholar: You know, your painting here has a pun for the supposedly unmarried—the man who marries under the broomstick lives without marrying at all.

Luther: What a wonderful painting. It puts proverbs in a beautiful setting that the commoners can understand. I approve of this.

Bishop: But the subject matter is so dull. The people should not be wasting their time with silly proverbs when they should be contemplating the wondrous teachings of the church, which the beautiful works in any cathedral can communicate well as this.

Scholar: Why don’t they just read it all?

Innkeeper: Because not all of us can read, remember? Most of are quite intelligent, but never had the benefit of your university training.

Luther: Anyway, I digress. According to the ordinances of Christ and His Apostles, every town should have a minister or bishop, as St. Paul plainly says. . .

Bishop: Yes, I am a bishop, get on with it. . .

Luther: . . . and this minister should not be forced to live without a lawful wife, but should be allowed to have one, as St. Paul writes, saying that “a bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife. . . having his children in subjection with all gravity.

Bishop: points to picture. . . Like this proverb implies, if you are not meant to be their keeper, will you let geese be geese. Do not interfere in matters that are not your concern. Another proverb concerns the question as to why geese go barefoot, it explains that there is a reason for everything, though it may not be obvious. As the Pope says, “. . .”

Luther: The Pope! Snorts Has not the Pope often erred? Who could help Christianity, in case the Pope errs, if we do not rather believe another who has the Scriptures for him?

Scholar: Hmm, if the blind lead the blind, both will fall into the ditch. I understand you perfectly, Luther.

Innkeeper absentmindedly finds the place on the painting.

Bishop: But the Pope is infallible!

Luther: It is a wickedly devised fable—and you cannot quote a single letter to confirm it—that it is for the Pope alone to interpret the Scriptures or to confirm the interpretation of them.

Innkeeper: I recognize you now! You’re that rabble-rouser, the one who caused the Peasant’s Rebellion! You carry fire in one hand and water in the other—you claim to be giving us independent thought, but instead, 80,000 are dead because of your teachings. Do you know how long it took me to build up this business after the Peasant’s Rebellion? I thought I believed you, too, but not now with so many of my friends, family, and loved ones dead.

Scholar: Peasants fought for scholarly reasons?

Innkeeper: Surely you should be aware of this!

Bishop: My church was all but destroyed by this rebellion!

Luther: I never wanted any of this to happen; I just wanted to give the people a greater knowledge of God. Don’t you want that, too, your greatness?

Bishop: All they need to know are the teachings and the authority of the church.

Scholar: He who eats fire shits sparks. Do not be surprised at the outcome if you attempt a dangerous venture.

Innkeeper: I don’t know. After the rebellion, I don’t think I know anything any more. It would be a comfort to be further taught of God, to understand why all this suffering happened. The times are changing. You should hang your cloak to the wind, your greatness, change your perspective a bit more with the changing times, and listen more to the people you serve in the name of God.

Bishop: What can smoke do to iron? There’s no point in trying to change the unchangeable. “The grass withers and the flowers fade, but the word of the lord remains forever.”

Luther: Than why does the church change it with the practice of indulgences? Do you, perhaps, follow the proverb that says that love is on the side where the money bag hangs? Can God’s free love be bought by indulgences? If that is true, then you tie a flaxen beard to the face of Christ, hiding deceit under a veneer of Christian piety.

Scholar: How interesting. Didn’t Christ have to pay for our sins, in a sense?

Luther: Which means they’re already paid for, and don’t need to be paid for again.

Innkeeper: So you mean all the money I’ve spent to send my dead husband heavenward is wasted? Grace is free?

Bishop: The world is turned upside down; everything is opposite of what it should be!

Scholar: Wry Smile So then, you do not wish to follow the very scriptures that give you your job, your greatness? It sounds like shoddy study to me. It would seem as though you are a pillar-biter, a religious hypocrite like the one pictured here.

Innkeeper: I hate to play on the pillory or attract attention to your shameful acts, but as much as I may agree with Luther and the honorable scholar here, I do not want trouble in my tavern. If you men wish to argue, please step outside. I’ll have no name-calling, especially when none of you have ordered anything this entire time. You shoot a second bolt to find the first, or repeat your foolish actions by wasting my time and my money. Either pay to stay or leave.

Scholar: But I see bears dancing! I’m starving!

Bishop: I find the dog in the pot here. It is too late to prevent the trouble that comes at the church, I suppose, and furthermore, to prevent the trouble of being tossed out of an inn. Please, can’t you spare a bishop some supper?

Innkeeper: The sow pulls the bung. Your negligence rewards you with this disaster.

Luther: I’m hungry, too! We will be able to tie the devil to a pillow! Through obstinacy, we will overcome!

Scholar: A wall with cracks will soon fail.

Innkeeper: All right, all right, my management’s just fine. What will you be having for supper, then?

All three: FOOD!

Para Janet

Eres mi hermana,

La hermana yo no ve

Antes de la semana

Cuando viaje

A tu tierra verde.

Extraño encontrar

Una gemela extranjera

Debajo de bandera

De otro tierra,

De tu tierra verde.

Nuestros dos idiomas

Combinaron en la una

De amistad en las poemas

Debajo de la luna

En tu tierra verde.

Vine la tormenta

Que nos separemos,

Y vine la lamenta

Cuando nos despedimos

Y salí de tu tierra verde.

Nos recordamos

Que somos hermanas

Y todavía nos oramos

Para las peruanas

En tu tierra verde.

Vamos a reunir

Otra vez, yo sé.

Vamos a venir

Dónde puedo verte

En tierra celestial verde.

They Say

They say my time's a time of change,
A new beginning, a fresh start.
Why, then, does it seem our range
Of change does not reach to the heart?

They say that all my people will sing
Of the god of Jacob, god of Zion.
Why, then, will so few bring
A word of comfort, a shoulder to cry on?

They say that we have all the power
To right the wrongs of time before.
Why, then, does this force all sour
Behind the comfort of closed door?

They say our feet will take us places
To relieve the world's great groans of pain.
Why, then, at home among the races
Are there still groups so cut in twain?

They say our hands will touch the lost
Who struggle in the dark of night.
Why, then, do these tempest-tossed
Still grasp, helpless, for the light?

We are not changed by what they say
Or by what their hopes and dreams spell--
No, it is our work, our destiny, our way
To save this cruel world from cruel Hell.

Plato Meets Clinton

Dramatis Personae: PLATO

CLINTON

CHIEFTAIN

WIFE

CHIEFTAIN and WIFE assume position of statue, motionless. Enter CLINTON and PLATO, arguing about the role of women in government. PLATO stops at statue.

CLINTON: I’m so glad you could make it today; it is an honor to have a man of your stature into my house. That’s an interesting uniform; it looks somewhat familiar.

PLATO: Yes, in my tour of your country, I met an interesting group of young people who represented my ideal of conformist education—they are called the Pathfinders, and they are indoctrinated from their early years in the way of their religion, everything from physical skills like marching to advanced physics. If they stay for many years, they become leaders—just as they would in my republic. So, I wear the uniform of these children, in the spirit of my republic.

CLINTON: I thought the uniform looked familiar. Normally, it is children who come in and see my art collection, for I find it an excellent education for them in the arts.

PLATO: How could show such a thing to children? This statue displays a gruesome, terrible death. As I’ve said in my writings, If a child believes that the place of the dead exists, and that it is terrible, do you think he will be unafraid of death, and choose death in battle before defeat and slavery? What you show here is nothing but defeat and slavery!

CLINTON: Well, I need to boost my performance in the polls, and education is a hot-button issue. By showing the children this art, I am educating them, and also improving in the polls.

PLATO: As a strong female leader, why do you keep something around that so poignantly reminds one of woman’s submission to man?

WIFE: Willing submission- look at the way that I kneel by my husband, even in death. Also, look at the way that he holds on so delicately—while he himself dies.

CLINTON, startled glances at statue.

CLINTON: I keep it because of its aesthetic value. I mean, look at it—it almost seems as though it were alive, as though it could spring to life and tell its own story.

PLATO: You speak of ridiculous things! You imagine it to speak to you, but imagination is a waste, for it is false. . . Doesn’t it bother you at all, how submissively the woman bends in death as the man stands over?

CHIEFTAIN: I was not killing her to show my superiority, but to save her from slavery. I could not stand to see my dear wife made submissive.

PLATO: In my republic, women would be equal with men in society and in politics; women and children would be in common, all equal.

CLINTON: Do you think I don’t know about that? Do you think I don’t know of woman’s ability to rule? Plato, times are changing. I am well on my way to becoming America’s first philosopher queen.

PLATO: angrily You are no philosopher! Look at this sculpture! No true philosopher queen would possess this. For one thing, it shuns the necessary poverty of true leadership and its excessive expression of emotion too easily captures the mind and inflames the senses. It will corrupt you, and I fear for your nation even more upon seeing this than when I heard it was a democracy, that endless pandering to the masses.

CHIEFTAIN: Did you hear that, dear? We corrupt leaders!

WIFE: Yeah, what did we ever do to deserve this badgering?

CLINTON: This statue will not corrupt me, but open my eyes to history. Look at it again, Plato, for it was made after your time. True lovers of art have much to say of it. It was made in the Hellenistic period in the Pergamene style—

PLATO: You mean Greeks fashioned such trash?

WIFE: In more ways than one; we were defeated, and according to YOU, WE, as a product of the imagination, are trash!

CLINTON: So Plato might say... ::turns to Plato: Anyway, several centuries after you wrote, Gallic invaders came from the north—

CHIEFTAIN: That’s us!

CLINTON: But they lost.

WIFE sighs audibly.

PLATO: How is such defeat a noble theme for art, then? In my republic, there would be no defeat—that alone displays how these conquerors are not Greeks of my government.

CHIEFTAIN: Your republic relies on perfect people, and there are none—no truly gold people, only those of false people, fool’s gold.

WIFE: How can there be any people of true gold? They can only strive to be so.

WIFE: Behold, we were made of bronze. . .

CHIEFTAIN: Until the Romans made a copy of us in marble and lost us in the sands of time. Still, Epigonos, or whoever it was that sculpted us, managed to catch our very last breaths. Plato wouldn’t approve of our portrayal; the artist followed the latest style, expressionism, to make us seem alive.

CLINTON: chuckles The Greek empire fell long ago to the Romans, who later fell to another empire. Defeat, it seems, comes to all. Sighs. That is what I fear of my country, for we are at war.

PLATO: Fear? You should not fear death. Do you believe anyone having in himself this fear could ever become courageous?

CLINTON: Certainly not.

PLATO: Looking upon this statue now, created 500 years after my time, it almost seems to speak to me, as well—tell me more about it.

CLINTON: It was originally a part of a larger bronze monument honoring the heroism of the defeated barbarians. No victors were shown; only the defeated.

CHIEFTAIN: As a chieftain, I did not fear death. Boldly, I went naked into war, like the rest of my fellow warriors. Plato, you yourself would have approved of this; you advocated that the male and female Guardians of your ideal republic should exercise naked together, throwing off ALL accessories.

WIFE: My husband killed me, then himself, that we would not be slaves.

PLATO: He committed suicide! The only noble man to have lost his life at his own will was Socrates. He did not try to escape the pain of life, but to accept justice as it came. See how this man’s face is so turned away from his wife, from the deed he is doing—there is nothing noble in that.

CHIEFTAIN: What do you know of our pain, scholar? You, descendent of kings, who lived a privileged life as a philosopher student of Socrates? Did you ever taste the heat of battle, ever feel the exhaustion of a drawn-out war after many miles of travel?

WIFE: Did you ever feel the despair of seeing your countrymen dying in multitudes before your eyes? Were you ever forced to choose between surrender to foreigners—or surrender to suicide? Or are you and your ideal leaders too purely gold to look upon the sufferings of the bronze?

PLATO: Bronze is a fitting medium for these statues, then. This man is so strong—powerfully built, as mighty and muscular as a man can be. His flesh is exhausted, though, dragged by the battle—had he more mental might, more of the higher arts than just the physical, he might be more able to deal with the problem of defeat!

CHIEFTAIN: Fine, you’ve found the core of my defeat. At the end of the relentless struggle, I could not think. But my government didn’t follow the same principles advocated by you in your ideal republic, where physical strength would be balanced with mental aptitude.

WIFE: Who could think after such struggle? Battle’s toil not only exhausts the flesh, but the mind as well. I don’t believe Plato realizes that.

CLINTON: How can I argue with a man like you? Perhaps, then, it turns out that I am only silver, or only bronze, for to me, this statue is gripping, seizing, and screaming for my attention with its story—see how the chieftain has killed his wife! ::point:: That is what my husband did to me, before ruining his own life. I have overcome, however, and I will rule, no matter what it takes.

PLATO: There is no room for you, or for your gaudy statue in my republic. Both are an abomination. You must never hold office, and this statue must be destroyed.

WIFE: Haven’t you torn us down enough already?

WIFE: Destroy us, and what’s left to tell our story? If you can’t find out for yourself by visiting the Terme museum in Rome, where we are currently housed, what will be left for you to debate of us?

CLINTON: This is now out of my hands. Unlike your republic, this is a democratic country, and now, in that spirit, I turn it over to my people. Turns to audience. What do you think—does this statue deserve to be destroyed? Question me, question Plato, and even question the statues—what should become of us?

PLATO: I do not believe in democracy, but let them ask, and I’ll beat you at your game! Go ahead and speak to us, citizens of America.