JOYFUL PIECE #85

Everyone sang and we will sing again

Some fellow citizens are anguished at what is seen and heard in the daily news. It seems that things cannot get any worse. Yet, the resistance to the current oppression by the POTUS regime grows daily— there are opposition demonstrations in all 50 states, sometimes on the same day.

Look at the photo again. The leafless tree looks forlorn, yet it is leafless in anticipation of full flowering after the cold winter. Blue skies of resistance continue to be exposed. Our political winter will pass, and we will break out in song, as Siegfried Sassoon’s poem Everyone Sang [Note 1] foretells.

Everyone suddenly burst out singing;
And I was filled with such delight
As prisoned birds must find in freedom
Winging wildly across the white
Orchards and dark green fields; on; on; and out of sight.

Everyone's voice was suddenly lifted,
And beauty came like the setting sun.
My heart was shaken with tears and horror
Drifted away ... O but every one
Was a bird; and the song was wordless; the singing will never be done.

Sometimes we feel that the flame of joy is waning. Fear not— it is looking for our brave breath to fan the fire of hope into a blaze. We must be patient and persevere. Victory over the forces of oppression will be ours if we are faithful to our values and reject the drive to control the minds of others, to immorally possess what is not ours, and to dispossess the marginalized of even their human rights.

Our mission needs our joyful commitment. In the words of Rev. Jesse Jackson, “Keep Hope Alive.”

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[Note 1] This poem is in the public domain and is made available through poets.org. Siegfried Sassoon was one of the British “war poets” during the First World War. Cited for courage in battle, he attained the rank of captain in the British Army and was awarded the Military Cross. He grew disenchanted with the leadership and their conduct of the war and openly denounced the UK’s participation towards the end of the war. Everyone Sang was published just after the war ended.