This Is Now, and That Was Then
Poem By Thomas Harrison Humphreys
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When still only a slight grammar school lad, I was let each morn to run up the flag. Then, at day’s-end, down the mast from the sky, Neatly furl it for the morrow to fly’. Ol’ Mr. Freeman told me this was done Not ‘cause we must, but ‘cause we should. He said, “Don’t matter that she’s made folly.” Said, “No thing’s without it … what counts, she’s strived. She done dreamed us up and give us a chance. And a chance is all a thing can ask for.” Then said, “Not to judge too harshly what was …” And added, “This is now, and that was then.” So, this we accepted, Ol’ Freeman and me, We valued that flag and all its fancy. But somewhere between that then and this now, We’ve unlearned a thing or two with scowl We bluntly pilfer men’s lives of great deeds Because human things too were their creeds. Washington and Jefferson, both owned slaves So yes, the mistakes ‘long the way were grave. But when they were here, ‘pon this faulty sphere The morays of then were not of this year. You do not judge God vile for drowning all, Every blameless babe sobbing its last bawl. And in Sunday School, Solomon, that king is sage, Though his temple rose from hands without wage. Seems both God and Solomon we allow Because that was then, and this is now. It’s funny how we think ourselves Immune to all time before us. We think we would not have succumbed To placing Christ upon that rood. We imagine ourselves too morally sturdy To become the Nazis that millions became. We believe we never could have condoned The purpose of that Middle Passage. We lie to ourselves and harshly judge Those lives of former men Because this is now, and that was then. The past is not to be toppled and removed Instead, the now is meant to be improved By what we add, not what we detract Between then and now, that is the pact. We, another experiment of God, Forever Americans becoming, Will find improvement in our clumsy plod Because of the dream forever drumming. So that flag you wish to disrespect … Go ahead, kneel when its anthem is played, Burn it even in angry protest. BUT … consider this in your display: You disrespect the very idea That respects your right to disrespect. Few elses in the world where you get that. So, withhold your esteem, because you may. As, it is easy to do what you can, But harder still not to do it at all, So, why you should NOT is because you can. That flag dreamed us, and is dreaming still Of all that we’ve been and all that we will. Now, I am but the boy that was, Of a world that has since passed by, In a world that does now give pause With a doubting skeptic’s eye. And Ol’ Freeman, he’s laid in Evergreen Where woefully he peers ‘pon rude rapine. And on his stone, in words so faint, “What’s been Has been, for this is now, and that was then.”
Thomas Harrison Humphreys, with a BS from the University of Lynchburg, is a history teacher who loves to talk to his students of poetry and literature. Thomas has had both poetry and short stories published in Westward Quarterly, Poetry Quarterly, Writers and Readers Magazine, Copperfield Review Quarterly, and Written Tales.