What Kind of Place Is the United States Today?

          I have a friend, a New Zealander, who said to me in an email a few days ago, "What a horrible place the States are."

          "Oh, no, no!" I wanted to cry, thinking of all the beautiful places I know, all the good people, and all the wonderful things about the country I live in. But I wondered uneasily if he were right, if my country is a horrible place these days. 

         I can't bear the thought.

         But if one's country is in the leadership hands of an incompetent, ego-maniacal, misogynistic, racist, calculating, environment-destroying, and power-thirsty madman, will it turn into a horrible place? Will bad people be emboldened to overcome the good? If good people peacefully protest evil deeds, as is their right, only to be overwhelmed by thugs and people with hate in their hearts intent only on destruction, is it a good place to live? Was it ever a good place to live for many of those peaceful protestors? Is it a good place to live where hatred of a person for being dark-skinned or otherwise different (but each of us is different in one way or another!) instigates murder? Is it a good place to live where racism is systemic (how I hate to face up to that truth, since all around me I see acceptance of all differences)? 

          The United States was once a beautiful place, for me and for many of us. When it becomes that again, I hope it is for all its people. I have faith that it will be, in spite of the evidence of this past week. But today, the violence in our cities, the large numbers of COVID-19 deaths, the cruel murder of George Floyd, and the continuing idiocy and worse coming from the White House overwhelm me. I am saddened and appalled by the death and destruction in my country, the horrible place it seems to have become. 

          To change it, vote. To change it, make sure everyone you know votes because I have faith that more people would like to see this kind of change than want to keep things as they are.

Death, Thou Art Proud, These Days

by Diana Coogle

These days Death is laughing in the face of old John Donne,

strutting down the street with his best buddies,

Violence, hanging on one arm, and Pestilence, on the other.

All three drunkenly reel with the success of their fun:

home runs in every city, tens off the diving board,

touchdowns on every field (but the crowds are not cheering).

Hatred, that snarling hound, nips at the heels of Violence

and chases every squirrel and timid chipmunk he can find.

Swaggering in hard iron boots, stringy Pestilence,

who, unlike buff-built Violence, is all skin and bones,

strikes lightning-scary sparks off the pavement stones.

Sporadically he throws in the air, like confetti,

the worms that do his work, letting them fall where they will.

Death watches with greedy, beady eyes, eager to go in for the kill.

The three of them strut through America's streets,

Tin Pan Alley, Main Street, Fifth Avenue, the Lower 9th Ward,

a despicable trio of misery and destruction.

Death is laughing the longest and the loudest,

for he knows he dies only in John Donne's imagination.

It's not Death but his buddies we should be going after.

Get the worms! Without the worms, Pestilence

shrinks into a harmless wandering ghost.

Destroy the dog! Or, better, tame it into a loving clone.

Without Hatred at his heels, Violence would slink away. 

Without Pestilence and Violence, Death would mind

his own business-as-usual, sometimes bitter, sometimes kind.