We Are All Local

I listened to the Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young song Teach Your Children today as I looked at this photograph from the anti-racism rally in Marshall on August 17. I was heartened. As I've aged I've often wondered if those of us of my generation have, in fact, taught our children well. Have we taught them to be engaged in their communities; taught them to value all people; taught them to honor the environment; taught them the stupidity of hate and the beauty of diversity? I wonder if we have taught them to teach their children? Clearly, some people have taught well, and others are teaching well.  

We Are All Local

The day was overcast, not cold.
Threatening rain.
The crowd electric and engaged.
Showing up in numbers unexpected.
The kindness of people on full display.
And also their fear, anger, and disgust at
what our country was becoming.
For me, a product of the sixties,
it was reminiscent of rallies past.
Efforts to end a war,
marches for Civil Rights,
rallies to move our society forward.

Most heartening for me, and
I suspect others my age,
was the overwhelming number of young people.
It gave me hope.

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Women's March to DC - Asheville, January 21, 2017

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Women's March to DC - Asheville, January 21, 2017

A couple of times this week, I've revisited Deja Vu,
the Cosby, Stills, Nash and Young album from 1970, and the song, 
Teach Your Children. 
Now, forty-seven years later, 
the song, especially the last verse,
rings true and prophetic.

Teach your parents well,
Their children's hell will slowly go by,
And feed them on your dreams
The one they picks, the one you'll know by.

Don't you ever ask them why, if they told you, you will cry,
So just look at them and sigh and know they love you.

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Women's March to DC - Asheville, January 21, 2017