“A battle lost or won
is easily described, understood, and appreciated, but the moral growth of a
great nation requires reflection, as well as observation, to appreciate it.” —Frederick Douglass
“If you come to a fork in the road, take
it.” —Yogi Berra
As the year winds down we turn the page on the
21st Century’s teen years. The nascent century is about to leave
adolescence, a time of transition from youth to maturity, as we come of age and
enter the 20’s.
In a sense we are the 21st
Century’s parents—still trying to figure out how to nurture this budding entity
and guide it on the path to do what’s right—establish moral values, embrace
empathy, and ensure that its future will offer equality and justice for all.
If we fail as parents and our progeny aren't able to shake this current decline, we will have set the course of history on a tailspin that will take years to recover.
The moral compass of the country is wavering. Is
the Earth’s magnetic field strong enough to right the course—or will the potential
energy wane and spin out of control?
As we celebrate the last winter solstice of the "teen years," let us take the time and effort to challenge destiny, take heed of our moral compass, and navigate this fork in the road.
Midlife
by Jeff Key
From
inside out the core stretches upward, reaching
for the sky—expecting to become what it wasn’t yesterday.
A new
shoot blanketed with monochrome aspirations,
explores
foreign territory—its first bud cut short by a recalcitrant winter.
Rust-colored
leaves descend in a vacillating free fall, twisting and craning for
one last look at the stem that held them in its grasp, bound
by memories,
lost in a stream defined by ambiguous currents.
Each
tick refines a stone, cut and shaped under the guise of an unconscious tremor, rippling
with indifference, buried, resuscitated and then discarded.
Translucent
skin bends and folds with a starboard slant—yawing on an uncharted course, calling
for a return to moist mornings filled with desire and an urgent call to forget.
Creased
sheets wrap tentative limbs, swaddled with fury, caught
in the glint of an innocent eye.
The
howling night repeats a mournful dirge for the neglected offspring of the summer wind, born
with heat on their lips and a short-sighted glance at the future pounding in
their ears.
A
finger, throbbing with neuralgia, strains to make marks on a blank page
pocked
with frayed holes that bore inward with the breath of a twice told tale—
unfinished
but filled with promise.
