Dynamic Giants
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| Mount Rushmore patinated with lichen |
A raucous confident “Roaring Twenties”
dreamt of noble statues cut in granite cliffs,
gigantic torsos with lofty heads
to haughtily survey the land and loot
of yesterday’s Manifest Destiny spree.
Four dynamic giants, wise and stony,
George, Tom, Teddy, and Abe,
towering and savvy.
But, war with Germany interrupts.
Budget cuts …
Those heroic torso plans get ditched.
Hitchcock later concocts
the zaniest of daring dream-chases,
cascading down
those four iconic, stern, paternal faces.
More budget cuts …
Green slime and sly lichens smirk in delight
as care is rationed
in a pinching austere clime.
But, a German firm, in 2005,
intercedes, presents a plan, and
generously donates a free pressure-wash,
methodically scrubbing
the four solid upright faces –– of yesterday.
How we yearn, how we flock,
with selfie stick aloft,
to see our better selves.
~ Kathy Zwick (1941- )
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| Mount Rushmore after its German facelift |
[NOTE: Kathy (Sanderson) Zwick taught history, literature, and creative writing in international schools in Brussels, Tehran, and London for over 30 years. However, she did not really spend time on her own writing until after she retired. In 2006 she submitted one of her first poems to a competition sponsored by a UK national bookstore and, to her surprise, won. Again, to her surprise, the prize was a collection of poetry books featuring the newly restored edition of Ariel, with a foreword by Frieda Hughes. Since then, she has had poems published in several UK anthologies including a sonnet anthology, Hand Luggage Only, The Brownsbank Anthology, The Hippocrates Prize, The Ver Prize 2015, and a human rights anthology, In Protest. Many of her poems play with ideas stemming from the quirks and ironies of history. Kathy also happems to be a high school classmate of FreeThinke. The two have known each other since 1954.]
We ask you please to CONTINUE sending your prayers, best thoughts, and fondest hopes for the recovery of our friend
JERSEY McJONES
now suffering with advanced,
metastatic cancer.
THANK YOU!
Mt Rushmore, the epitome of Symbolic Capital...
ReplyDeleteNo greater act of symbolic violence could have been perpetrated against the Lakota Sioux than to re-construct a monument to the invaders on one of the holiest site in Lakota territory. Of course, the Lakota themselves had only conquered the territory by defeating the Cheyenne in 1776...
DeleteWIKI REPORTS:
DeleteMount Rushmore National Memorial
Sculptures of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln (left to right)
Location Pennington County, South Dakota, United States
Established March 3, 1925Visitors 2,185,447 (in 2012)[1]
Governing body National Park Service
Mount Rushmore National Memorial is a sculpture carved into the granite face of Mount Rushmore, a batholith in the Black Hills in Keystone, South Dakota, United States. Sculptor Gutzon Borglum created the sculpture's design and oversaw the project's execution from 1927-1941 with the help of his son, Lincoln Borglum.
Mount Rushmore features 60-foot sculptures of the heads of four United States presidents: George Washington (1732–1799), Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826), Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919), and Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865).
South Dakota historian Doane Robinson is credited with conceiving the idea of carving the likenesses of famous people into the Black Hills region of South Dakota in order to promote tourism ...
Mount Rushmore has the advantage of facing southeast for maximum sun exposure. Robinson wanted it to feature American West heroes like Lewis and Clark, Red Cloud, and Buffalo Bill Cody, but Borglum decided the sculpture should have broader appeal and chose the four presidents.
After securing federal funding through the enthusiastic sponsorship of "Mount Rushmore's great political patron" U.S. Senator Peter Norbeck construction on the memorial began in 1927, and the presidents' faces were completed between 1934 and 1939.
Upon Gutzon Borglum's death in March 1941, his son Lincoln Borglum took over as leader of the project ... Lack of funding forced construction to end in late October 1941.
Mount Rushmore has become an iconic symbol of the United States, and it has appeared in works of fiction, as well as being discussed or depicted in other popular works. It attracts over two million visitors annually.[
I'm not exactly happy that the pope wants to side with the Progressives of the world...And its a shame he has more to say about Trump than the atrocities facing Christians in majority Muslim countries. What a coward he turned out to be.
ReplyDeleteCatholicism, much like global capitalism, is a trans-global enterprise. Of course the Pope's going to endorse the Soros' Immigration Plan! It's good for global capital, and it appears, on the surface, to be good for the "poor immigrants" as well. What's letting in a million immigrants compared to letting in 5 billion? It "symbolically" takes care of the immigration problem w/o the reality of billions of immigrants traipsing through the Louvre.
DeleteI agree, Doris, Francis the Talking Ass is a ROTTEN excuse for a Holy Man. He is not truly "religious" at all. Instead he is an outspoken advocate for a Unified World Dominated by Marxism.
DeleteHOWEVER, what Francis the Talking Ass has to do with Mount Rushmore or my friend Kathy Zwck's remarkable poem I can't imagine.
I wish I could understand why YOU –– and so many OTHERS –– absolutely refuse to address the tropic of a given post, and insist in going off on tangents all your own?
I don't think you realize it, but posting IRRELEVANT remarks without even ACKNOWLEDGING the contributiin of the blog editor is just plain RUDE.
Some folks just can't help themselves, FreeThinke.
DeleteIt's a magnificent poem, too bad some got to go and spoil it.
Nothing's been "spoiled," Herb. I'm just trying to set higher-than-average standards at this blog, and maintain them. Don't you too get bored stiff with endless denunciation and derogation?
DeleteI'm glad you appreciated the poem. Did you notice that Kathy never once mentions "Mt. Rushmore" directly? I think the omission is a clever way to pique curiosity in potential readers.
Funny! When we were seatmates in our high school English classes, neither of us wrote poetry. I started in college, and have been going on with it ever since. She did not begin to write poetry in earnest till she retired from teaching only a few years ago.
All efforts to add Comrade Obamavitch to Mt. Rushmore have been put on hold, since no one has been able to locate a 200 Ton Lump of Coal
ReplyDeleteWhy no democrats on Mt Rushmore? I don't stress over it.
ReplyDelete