Come Hither, Hillpeople

One must wonder what holds a heavier hand on the wheel;
The recent past or the reminisced-upon mirage.

Is the relationship between time and reverence now unwound,
Trawling its sprawling line of toil and tumult,
And of heartbreak and heroics,
Unto this sea of now-calamitous humanity?

Are we mired in this wanton wake of our own doing?
Or will the ghosts of our Grand Experiment manifest some antidote?
Will some charlatan then whisk that away to be the marquee act
Of their semi-automatic sideshow?

“Come hither, Hillpeople! This is your time!
“Be led unto oblivion by a quack! A hack! A con!”

These are the occult optics of a conjured confederacy.
An undoubted detriment to democracy.
It finds us, again.
And we are NOT FINE.

A return to simpleton-er times,
When men were men and brothers shot each other
The “good ol’ days” of bone-saws,
Gnawing through our boys on the battlefield.

How proud we wish to be of this and us,
But dust unsettled lays thick on upon our purpose.