Elegy to a promised land

In the quiet twilight, we gather here today, To honor my dad, remember him, and pray. From the promised land, he flew with no regret, To the fifties U.S., a different mindset. In the old world, he wore many hats, even a soldier, Now a young man on a Greyhound bus, bound for Boulder. "Mariah," the bus played as they rolled along, He remembered Mount Moriah and mistook it in the song. He told us the U.S. had been great, yet he was sad, Perhaps because we didn't know what we once had. He worked his way through the U of C, Studying the holistic subject of geography. Dad became a professor; I watched the applause, At conferences, everyone knew who he was. A geographer who explored every field, Endless books in his study, a vast horizon revealed. Our summers in New England and the West, The mile-square farm on Black Hill Road was the best. Swimming holes, blackberry bushes, mountain hikes, Exploring dirt roads on three-speed bikes. But time went by, good came, but so did pain People seemed so plastic, no anchor kept them sane The sixties began the process, self-image changed, A once-great country now became deranged. Geography was deemed passé, no longer in fashion, Radical winds swept through college halls, a destructive passion. A compass spinning wild, the intellectuals sinned, He wondered if Mariah still named the wind. In older lands one friend had fought Nazis and Communists too You wouldn’t think it to look at him, but it was true. Dad joined with him and others to stem an intolerant tide, A battle of course doomed, but at least they tried. While we're still standing here, memories endure, A young man's arrival, his heart remaining pure. He's gone now, but he didn't cave, he made his stand, In the old and then in a new Promised Land. Zionists have been hunted in High School halls, Jews huddle in fright as mobs bang on the walls. What would he have felt, to see democracy’s shame? Though I know he lost I’m proud he ran the race all the same.