This will pass...

[wildflower]

What a week. I look around at everything that's happening and feel despair. CAFTA, the energy bill, the Patriot Act...

But there are some things that remind me that, as Buddhism teaches, everything is impermanent. The following poem is such a reminder. Sometimes it depresses me, and sometimes it makes me feel better. Tonight, it's the latter. I hope it does the same for you. (The latter, that is!)

Ozymandias

I met a traveler from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read,
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed,
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look upon my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

-Percy Bysshe Shelley
1792-1822

-wildflower

[blue sky at night]

1. you know we have had this dumb thing called the........

constitution for around two-hundred twenty-odd years. Guess it too has to pass on, nothing is permanent.......except for my loathing. I too feel very funky this week, thanks for sharing.

[blogslut]

2. panhandle of texas

The sky stretches forever but as you're passing, you'll see a pair of trunkless legs jutting up around Amarillo. The Ozymandias of the High Plains.

Also you'll find ten Cadillacs, nose down, all models from the years 1950-1960, all postioned at the exact angle of the Great Pyramid.

Don't know why I wrote that. I guess it's just that kind of night.

[Liberal In Texas]

6. I of course have been there and seen it...

with my sons.

The panhandle is desolate and as redneck as you can imagine. My sons and I are from Nebraska and found ourselves in Texas (Dallas) for some reason.

We were driving back from New Mexico (a truly magical place) and the old man (me) saw this Cadillac art work and had to pull over to take pictures. Yes it is just the most wonderful strange thing in the middle of pretty much no where.

I'll share the image...

[Psephos]

3. Honest Abe

An Eastern monarch once charged his wise men to invent him a sentence to be ever in view, and which should be true and appropriate in all times and situations. They presented him the words: "And this, too, shall pass away." How much it expresses! How chastening in the hour of pride! How consoling in the depths of affliction!
- Abraham Lincoln

[wildflower]

13. I had never heard that, thank you. n/t

[Liberal In Texas]

4. It will. But it's going to get bloody worse before it gets better.

I keep thinking that the pendulum will stop swinging and start back soon.

It's still making it's presage.

We will probably lose women's rights, we'll lose the country to theocracy, we'll lose our voting rights, we'll lose unions, we'll lose freedom of speech, we'll will lose the internet, we'll lose the broadcast airwaves, we'll lose one freedom after another, and we'll probably lose sons and daughters to even worse wars.

Until it gets really bad and The Sheep Look Up (sorry Brunner for borrowing your excellent title...but I think you would understand) and rise against the fascists, this will continue.

[wildflower]

14. I worry about that too. Sometimes so much that I become no use to anyone..

So I turn to things like this poem to give me perspective.

[Lannes]

5. My concern is that they are so vindictive that if they lost

That they would do something that would pretty much wipe out the last remaining vestiges of what this country used to be.Not because of ideology but out of spite.

Like the way saddam burned all the oil fields after he knew that he lost Kuwait but on a grander scale.Not necesarily physical damage either.There are many ways to sink this country without blowing it up.

[Liberal In Texas]

7. They don't want the country as it was founded by those old guys who

signed the Declaration and risked their lives to break away from Britain.

As much as they espouse it, they don't want it.

They want corporate religion and government blended into one. Pretty much what Mussolini wanted. And Hitler.

Halliburton is now a "person" and how can we fight that?

(Oooooh....I have an idea. It's something from the 60's when these guys tried it in the first place...it's called TAKE IT TO THE STREETS!)

Alas, we have too many sheep today, and the young people don't give a shit.

[wli]

9. I'm sure the biological weapons research has cooked up something

It's not like they'd take getting booted out of office sitting down. They'll kill us all and laugh about it in ski resorts in Switzerland while waiting their turns to make withdrawals from their Swiss bank accounts.

[shance]

8. However, somethings are more permanent than others.

We can sit back and wait for the change and meditate while more innocent people die, or we can stand up and learn how to fight for what we've been given.

[wildflower]

15. Or one could do both (stand up, and meditate) as, e.g., Gandhi did. n/t

[wli]

10. first the constitution, then me

Sometime after I'm dead along with many others, sure, it'll pass.

[The Minus World]

11. Metaphysical Meltdown

Thank you for sharing this poem. You've given others the opportunity to discover something wonderful and timeless for the first time.

Over the course of my life, the story of Ozymandias has provided me with comfort in times of dolour. It instructs us to know that although man, in his hubris, may create empires of greed and selfishness, and assume the role of demigod amongst fellow men, no man is sheltered from the inevitable. Just as all things must decay, all empires must fall; and from the ashes of the past, new life springs forth.

We may not have an illustrious future to look forward to--nor may our children or grandchildren, but comfort in knowing that the balance and rhythm of nature is constant, and that the artificial and self-destructive constructs of man - every single one of them - will eventually topple.

[wildflower]

12. It makes me think of that quote from Gandhi...

Whenever I despair, I remember that the way of truth and love has always won. There may be tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they may seem invincible, but in the end, they always fail. Think of it: always.

When I was younger, I used to find "Ozymandias" depressing; there was something so desolate about it. Now I see in it the kings and empires of which he speaks, and it gives me perspective.

Thank you for sharing how much the poem has meant to you.

-wildflower