See press headlines 1/21/11-1/31/11
See Kings 10:14-12:24
It’s January, twenty-eleven
And, this time, folks rage on Egyptian streets
Burning to leaven with yeast of heaven
The coarse grain of modern life—to defeat
Tyrants, corruption—demanding justice.
Thus was it always! Some three thousand years
Have passed since Solomon’s rash politics
Ruined his wily father’s taut, engineered
United monarchy. Seven hundred
Wives, three hundred concubines? How’s that wise?
And the building—the temple, the blundered
Palace (twenty years of forced labor)! Nice!
No wonder Israel complained when Prince
Rehoboam sought election. Less tax,
Less corvée, they shouted! Rehoboam, flint,
Drunk with power, ignored sage counsel, axed
His grandpa’s dream—snarling “More pain, not less!”
Hubris, greed, history’s accelerants,
Forever flame our lives, provoke such stress
The wretched rise, reject self-serving cant.
Three thousand human years, all brightly lit;
What have we learned? Amended? Not one whit!
(1/31/11)