Restoring Honor

Recently I've been thinking (along with much of the country) about politics, protest, co-opting movements, turning aims against themselves, ownership of a cause, invoking freedom to quash freedom, dividing to conquer. There's been the Ground Zero Mosque, Glenn Beck's cover-band rendition of the March on Washington and general ideological demagoguery that makes the Kardashians look thoughtful and the Juggalos seem well-mannered. Or is it the other way around?


At any rate, I'm feeling current events whiplash.


It's made me exhausted because I don't have many clear answers. I have some ideals, maybe a principle or two, but everything's complicated. Nobody is completely in the right and nobody is plotting to conquer the world from their hollowed-out volcano. I think Frank Capra himself would shrug and mumble that he's out of answers, too. Everything is more difficult than you would think. 


Maybe it's simpler, too. Here's something that felt completely inappropriate to the current moment. If you could write haiku as poems of protest, they might go like this. And if it's 100% not apropos, you know it must have something to offer us right now.

Hottoba no

Shida Yaba

Behold! Violets bloom within
The fence of the forbidden ground.