Barbara Peckham Poet Free verse

Notes About The Poem

It's the way I see it!

Edited 02/11/22

Ideals

Ideals

Ideals 

High ideals?  
We all had them 
In the forties, in college, 
those long, all-night
heated arguments,  
sitting cross-legged 
on the floor,
debating how
to change the world.
Words – ideas,
what we could do
some day.

Twenty years 
before the sixties, 
waves of political injustices 
student revolutions
on campuses
across the country, 
young scholars
no longer debating,
leaving their classes, 
holding sit-ins, hunger strikes, 
storming offices 
and police barricades, 
damaging buildings.

Our goals – to study,
burn the midnight oil,
to keep our scholarships,
graduate, get a job,
vote, elect worthy 
candidates to Congress.
Our generation
brought up to respect
authority, work with,
not against, 
certainly not with violence.

We were wrong. 
Progress does not  
happen with time
and debate.
It comes with
true passion for a
just cause, zeal, intention,
action to break through 
set boundaries,  
challenging the 
status quo in real time.
With violence? No.
Unwavering resistance, yes.
Violence brings only thirst 
For vengeance, not results.

Stand firm.
Rejecting injustice
even when condemned.
Seat yourself
in the front of the bus.
Walk on the restricted beach,
Take in and 
protect immigrants.
Demand real living wage.
Block those who force
restricted access 
to women’s clinics.
Join a mass protest against
ageism, sexism, 
unfair practices
targeting the “others”. 
Ideals minus action
are useless dreams.

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Rico Leffanta February 6, 2022 at 10:46 AM Well said! Despite Hugh Hefner et al, women are not much better off than they were before he was born, with men who don't know anything about women, continuing to tell them how they must live their lives. Without women, men cease to exist! Aloha! Rico Leffanta February 7, 2022 at 9:51 AM Continue writing as your words have weight! Aloha! Barbara Peckham February 6, 2022 at 7:04 PM Thank you, Rick. It is so many things. Religious fanatics holding everyone hostage to their personal beliefs; greedy politicians only out for more power and money; greed, selfishness and prejudice in so much of the population. Where do we begin. At 93 I can't do much any more except send money, and I don't have a lot to send!