My Captain does not answer, his lips pale and still, ship is anchor’d safe
February 12, 1809 – April 14, 1865
O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done, The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won, The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting, While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring; But O heart! heart! heart! O the bleeding drops of red, Where on the deck my Captain lies, Fallen cold and dead.
O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells; Rise up—for you the flag is flung—for you the bugle trills, For you bouquets and ribbon’d wreaths—for you the shores a-crowding, For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning; Here Captain! dear father! This arm beneath your head! It is some dream that on the deck, You’ve fallen cold and dead.
My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still, My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will, The ship is anchor’d safe and sound, its voyage closed and done, From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won; Exult O shores, and ring O bells! But I with mournful tread, Walk the deck my Captain lies, Fallen cold and dead.
According to Wikipedia, “O Captain! My Captain!” is an extended metaphor poem written by Walt Whitman in 1865 about the death of U.S. president Abraham Lincoln. Well received upon publication, the poem was Whitman’s first to be anthologized and the most popular during his lifetime. Together with “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d”, “Hush’d Be the Camps To-Day”, and “This Dust Was Once the Man”, it is one of four poems written by Whitman about the death of Lincoln.”
Behind Mr. Lincoln’s statue is carved these words.
“In this temple as in the hearts of the people for whom he saved the Union, the memory of Abraham Lincoln is enshrined forever
nothing in malice what I deal with too vast for malicious dealing
In a letter in response to a question about how the emancipation of slavery and the power of the Army might be misapplied in Louisiana, Abraham Lincoln wrote on July 28. 1862:
I am in no boastful mood.
I shall not do more than I can, and I shall do all I can to save the government, which is my sworn duty as well as my personal inclination.
I shall do nothing in malice.
What I deal with is too vast for malicious dealing.
Yours truly
A. Lincoln
No boastful mood.
Shall do nothing in malice.
I shall do all I can to save the government.
… my sworn duty.
… my personal inclination.
What I deal with is too vast for malicious dealing.
How can Mr. Lincoln sum up so much of what is wrong today in so few words?
essential freedoms speech, worship, from want, from fear anywhere in world
In the future days, which we seek to make secure, we look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms.
The first is freedom of speech, and expression—everywhere in the world.
The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way—everywhere in the world.
The third is freedom from want—which, translated into world terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants—everywhere in the world.
The fourth is freedom from fear—which, translated into world terms, means a world-wide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor—anywhere in the world.
That is no vision of a distant millennium.
It is a definite basis for a kind of world attainable in our own time and generation.
Franklin D. Roosevelt, excerpted from the State of the Union Address to the Congress, January 6, 1941
What is it about these freedoms that make the followers of the evangelical church of trump so angry?
Any expression in favor if these freedoms cause a, to paraphrase CS Lewis, howl of sharpened famine that re-echoes at this moment through all the levels of the Kingdom of Noise down to the very Throne itself.
Let me focus on just one freedom, the freedom from fear.
Remember those days?
The days before we wondered, every minute of every day, what might happen next?
Remember that morning after the mid year elections in 2022?
That morning in America where we felt that America, the old America, the America that stood tall in the world, was still there and stirring.
We felt … freedom from fear?
For a few days anyway.
Now comes the 2nd chapter of the evangelical church of trump preaching fear, fear, fear.
Fear your neighbor.
Fear your friend.
Fear your family.
And … trust the evangelical church of trump.
And you will be free from fear.
I don’t know about you, but I think of Matthew 24:15 and I am waiting for the evangelical church of trump in bring about a golden statue of someone and set it someplace … “So when you see standing in the holy place ‘the abomination that causes desolation,’ spoken of through the prophet Daniel — let the reader understand.
For myself?
I am so tired of the fear.
I will rejoice in the Lord and tremble for my country as I know God is just.
delay, obfuscate flout court orders, while man’s life safety is at risk
Abrego Garcia’s lawyers said in a Friday court filing “the government continues to delay, obfuscate, and flout court orders, while a man’s life and safety is at risk”.
US federal judge Paula Xinis has repeatedly pressed a government attorney for answers. She said:
I’m not sure what to take from the fact that the supreme court has spoken quite clearly and yet I can’t get an answer today about what you’ve done, if anything, in the past.
No Haiku For You 