How we eagerly read so many new names
(like Rousseau, Robespierre, Marx)
of social revolution
in books at Berkeley,
read of feasts of blood
and showers of murders through Western times
How it was quickly becoming something more to me than history
It was becoming an exploding passion
as we sat on a mountain on the edge of America over the Bay
dangling our feet to see how far we could go for pure freedom
pushing away the mind’s old dandelion utopias.
How John Muir pulsed in our veins, his steadfast embrace of rampant wildness
in his dangerous life, he challenged the just wear a dark suit men
all my life sick on the edge before, made me more ready to jump
into more, all that I didn’t understand
How to go further, trembling as I was, into Berkeley’s tempting rabbit holes
hands and feet slither into a green New Age of ecology and equality
Into a light that saved trees and food that fed souls
how we broke all our molds, wrote over stingy rules
How we stood together, norm creators envisioning in a blur of newness
charting new ways with glittering eyes since we knew
we were climbing as one into the unchartered
without pretense or yesterday’s food
How we felt raw and naked in our bones beginning it all
Protected by beautiful Berkeley light
Secure in our mysterious dreams pushing hard, way beyond
The rigid order of Victorian sight
©2019, Linda Chown
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The focus of "The BeZine," a publication of The Bardo Group Beguines, is on sacred space (common ground) as it is expressed through the arts. Our work covers a range of topics: spirituality, life, death, personal experience, culture, current events, history, art, and photography and film. We share work here that is representative of universal human values however differently they might be expressed in our varied religions and cultures. We feel that our art and our Internet-facilitated social connection offer a means to see one another in our simple humanity, as brothers and sisters, and not as “other.” This is a space where we hope you’ll delight in learning how much you have in common with “other” peoples. We hope that your visits here will help you to love (respect) not fear. For more see our Info/Mission Statement Page.
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This captured my attention and held it right to the end, Linda. fascinating physical structure (I’d be interested to know why you decided to do the staggered line starts like that), but above all the language, even though some of the references I didn’t fully understand – perhaps because I live on the other side of the big pond – didn’t lose me for a minute. Thank you, Poet.
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“How we eagerly read so many new names
(like Rousseau, Robespierre, Marx)
of social revolution”
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