Upsoaring wings: Trumpeting and hooting

When I was a teenager, Khalil Gibran’s The Prophet was all the rage. I confess I did not read it, but my lack of support notwithstanding, Gibran is the third-best selling poet of all time. (Shakespeare and Lao Tzu were ahead of him, if you’re asking.)

Gibran was born in Lebanon when it was part of the Ottoman Empire and moved with his mother and siblings to the United States around the turn of the last century. He was a gifted artist as well as a poet; another of those super-creative types.

Today’s entry for National Poetry Month, “Pity the Nation”, was published in 1933, two years after Gibran’s death. I think you’ll agree that it is heartbreaking, and that we are living that heartbreak today.

“Pity the Nation”

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

Pity the nation that acclaims the bully as hero,

and that deems the glittering conqueror bountiful.

Pity a 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 trumpeting,

and farewells him with hooting,

only to welcome another with trumpeting again.