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To Know the Country Whole – A Definition in Poem

I want to know the country whole. The country: the country with its upturned plains and teeming back bays the country carved, sliced, and served in red and blue the country broken the country of my birth and of exile’s long longings the country promised and made new along with heaven I want to know…

IMG_7103I want to know the country whole.

The country:

the country with its upturned plains and teeming back bays

the country carved, sliced, and served in red and blue

the country broken

the country of my birth and of exile’s long longings

the country promised and made new along with heaven

I want to know the country whole.

Whole:

all of it

comprehensively

in stereovision

restored

communing

saved

I want to know the country whole.

To know:

to see

to experience

to probe

to taste

to receive

to anticipate

to desire

to love

 

3 responses

  1. Ruth Atterberry Avatar
    Ruth Atterberry

    The last time I felt the country so fractured was in the late 60s. War protests and the resulting counter-protests. Civil Rights battles still raging. So soon afterward came Watergate and Iran hostages. I think, worn to a nub, we more or less coasted numbly into the 80s and then into economic and peace bubbles of the 90s. Not that either decade was without conflict, but it stayed at a manageable level. Since 9/11, we’ve become more reactionary than I can ever remember being. And divisions more viciously hostile.

    The knot in my gut is familiar, even if unwelcome. Never has Christmas hope been so precious and the Church so desperately needed.

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The author

Alex Joyner is a writer and pastor in Charlottesville, Virginia.

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