HISTORY LESSON

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JOURNAL # 41

history is
a glorious story teller
of tribes and wars
epic battles and scores
religious tribulations
along side
highly questionable
affiliations
history takes notes
of deaths and births
the rises and falls of
nations past
their glory and their pillage
how thriving cities emerged
from the humble beginnings
of a quaint little village
the breath and scope of
the markings of time
is as broad in the memory
as any beach front tide
misery and poverty have
always had their own spot
clearly marked on such landscape
as kings arose and zealots berated
the ways to excess being exploited
history is fiery
history is frank
history takes no hostages
history can cleverly put the distant
past right in one's face
and demonstrate to the learned
its valuable mistakes
but we as humans
are generic learners at best
and still to think why even to this
very week (Israel/Palestine situation/
Iraq/Syria situations)
manage to repeat some of the very
same mistakes
Ignorance to history is man's foe
but somehow
(likely through little more than God's good graces)
man manages to step over them one by one
and rise up again in conquest
a million plus wars easily have been fought since
the dawning of man's time
from the many small tribe skirmishes that were
never written down
to the millennium's worth that litter ancient texts
great long battles and deaths, carnage and
degradation fueling rape, cruelty and slavery
few wish to revisit
but if one has the stomach to really look
trust me, they are all there
we live even today in an utterly violent race
continuing on as we have always done
taking some comfort in the better angels
who live among our midst
but even then, we have to be honest
history has always stood faithfully
behind us
keeping our shocking mistakes and pace......
(July 10, 2014 1040am)