"They can take our WIVES..."

"...but they can't take our freedom!"


This is what I thought Mel Gibson screamed in the Diary of a Mad Blue-faced Man movie from 1995. I didn't bat an eye. National revolts are often started by the love or loss of a woman. It's just that no one admits it until centuries later in sabotaged history accounts and tall tales. I was impressed with the candor and missed the 'real' poetry.


I am really looking forward to the day when someone in the distant future standing with a butterfly on his shoulder atop a luscious, green hill overlooking forests and pastures full of animals, a sky filled with friendly birds and a village full of happy, healthy, purposeful people, looks down and bends over a dried creek-bed to retrieve a United States coin, encrusted with bits of blood and manure, preserved in amber. I look forward to him placing it in his pocket, running down to his family and holding up the treasure at the dinner table that evening; his little children in awe of the orange glow cast on the floor from the firelight that shines right through it.  I look forward to him giving it to the town elder, who discovers by way of written response to his letters sent, that the coin actually dates back to an ancient time. The culture of the snake that once prospered but quickly swallowed it's own tale because of the love of a mere woman.  


A woman named commerce.