In My Lifetime I Have Seen Democracy

Is It A Coincidence That Stories From The Private Life Became More Popular Just As The Grand Hope For Public Redemption Through Revolution Was Beginning To Sour? I Witnessed A Similar Shift In Taste In My Own Time. In The 1960s, While A Hopeful Vision Of A Just Society Arose Again, Countless Poems And Plays Concerning Politics And Public Life Were Written, Read, And Performed. But After The Hope Diminished And Public Life Seemed Less And Less Trustworthy, This Subject Was Less In Style.

This Earth Is My Sister; I Love Her Daily Grace, Her Silent Daring, And How Loved I Am. How We Admire This Strength In Each Other, All That We Have Lost, All That We Have Suffered, All That We Know: We Are Stunned By This Beauty, And I Do Not Forget: What She Is To Me, What I Am To Her.

I Know I Am Made From This Earth, As My Mother's Hands Were Made From This Earth, As Her Dreams Came From This Earth And All That I Know, I Know In This Earth, The Body Of The Bird, This Pen, This Paper, These Hands, This Tongue Speaking, All That I Know Speaks To Me Through This Earth.

Yes We Are Devilish; That Is True We Cackle. Yes We Are Dark Like The Soil And Wild Like The Animals. And We Turn To Each Other And Stare Into This Darkness. We Find It Beautiful. We Find This Darkness Irresistible. We Cease All Hiding.

A Story Is Told As Much By Silence As By Speech.