So Hope for a Great Sea-Change

 "History says

Don't hope on this side of the grave

But then, once in a lifetime

The longed-for tidal wave

Of justice can rise up

And hope and history rhyme.

So hope for a great sea-change

On the far side of revenge.

Believe that further shore

Is reachable from here.

Believe in miracle

And cures and healing wells."

- Seamus Heaney, "The Cure at Troy"

When I was a junior at Harvard, Seamus Heaney was my poetry professor. I had no idea then how influential Heaney was as a poet and how his far-reaching verses would echo through the years in the words of world leaders. Their emergence in Joe Biden's acceptance speech at the Democratic convention, as Biden finally accepted his party's nomination for president, took my breath away. The verse "and hope and history rhyme" put my own earlier words about escape plans to shame and prompted me to quickly re-evaluate both my current attitude and my prospective actions.

The seeds of a solution have been planted in the soil of America's discontent, and we pray for a light to penetrate the darkness even as we must be the hands that water and cultivate the soil. I signed up to write get-out-the-vote (GOTV) letters to voters in a swing state.  Urging the recipients only to vote and not whom to vote for, the stack of letters is piling up on the side of my desk, waiting until late October when I'm due to send them out.  

I've emailed the US Postal Service Board of Governors several times to demand a repeal of the removal of mailboxes and sorting machines, reached out to my congressional representatives to ensure a fair vote. We have donated to campaigns both national and local, pledged to write personal postcards to swing voters in Colorado. I will help people get to drop boxes at the November election, help at the polls if necessary, and continue writing letters to voters. 

The United States moves now like a heavily-freighted cargo ship through stormy seas. The ponderous forward motion belies a hefty momentum that will make it hard - but not impossible - for us to change course. Some of the containers we carry hold weighty mass like pride, grievances, anger, blame. We may have to off-load some of this cargo before we can slowly begin to turn our massive ship and avoid the obstacles that now line our path.

I owe a debt of thanks to Biden and Seamus Heaney for plugging me into a hopeful energy that will be necessary in the coming months. While I was too late to understand the greatness of my poetry professor in time to relish his physical presence, I won't be late to recognize the precious - and precarious - nature of our democracy and my role in preserving it.