#1. To Change The World Enough
by Alice Walker
To change the world enough
you must cease to be afraid
of the poor.
We experience your fear as the least pardonable of
humiliations; in the past
it has sent us scurrying off
daunted and ashamed
into the shadows.
Now,
the world ending
the only one all of us have known
we seek the same
fresh light
you do:
the same high place
and ample table.
The poor always believe
there is room enough
for all of us;
the very rich never seem to have heard
of this.
In us there is wisdom of how to share
loaves and fishes
however few;
we do this everyday.
Learn from us,
we ask you.
We enter now
the dreaded location
of Earth’s reckoning;
no longer far
off
or hidden in books
that claim to disclose
revelations;
it is here.
We must walk together without fear.
There is no path without us.
#2. Blue Remembered Hills
By A. E. Housman
Into my heart an air that kills
From yon far country blows;
What are those blue remembered hills,
What spires, what farms are those?
That is the land of lost content,
I see it shining plain,
The happy highways where I went
And cannot come again.
Belladonna Rogers says
While Walker’s effort evokes a disgusted “Arggggghhhhhhhh,” Housman’s poem elicits a euphoric “Ahhhhhhhh.”
CogitoErgoSum says
A reason to fear the poor is that the poor often use violence to take what they want – which is not always the same as what they need. Envy is a sin as well as greed. How do some people know this? Perhaps they learn by reading books of poetry, though some books of poetry tell men to kill and take booty as the spoils of war. Be careful of the food you eat and the books of poems that you read for both can be deadly to your well-being and the well-being of others; that is, if you love your neighbor as you do yourself.
Gospel Day says
+1
somehistory says
“In us there is wisdom of how to share
loaves and fishes
however few;
we do this everyday.”
She stole this from the Bible. And missed the lesson.
hidden in books
that claim to disclose
revelations
CogitoErgoSum says
Yes, I detected a certain amount of disdain for the Bible in Walker’s ,,, prose … especially when she states “in us there is wisdom” and “without us there is no path.” No, there are paths already set before us. There is just one way we should go. It is up to us to choose the right path.
She tries to make her message seem benevolent but really it is not.
somehistory says
thank you, CES.
While trying to write my comment, my computer suddenly rebelled and took off on its own course.
Her “wisdom” if she has any, is human wisdom, although she does try to make herself…and others like her…(probably not including White poor) seem wise beyond what the rest of us can achieve..
Jesus was “poor” but He didn’t use that to show how very wise He is. Being poor doesn’t equate with being wise, as she wants people to believe.
As you say, the Path has been laid by the Wisest in the Universe. We just need to find it and then stay on course.
mea says
231128 Reply to CogitoErgoSum on Jihadwatch.org
it’s simple, like the citizenery of the West, she is indoctrinated to be a marxist Toady.
she is living proof, in lockstep with her Nazi brethren, that indoctrination works.
As such, she condemns Colonialism.
The very institution which, in a mere 500 years not only tried to drag her stone age : marginally metal working fore bearers but also increased their population numbers fro a few millions to + billions and taught them how to drive…
t is not colonialism’s fault that her majority of non colonial people refuse to learn to read and write = educate themselves so they can develop their own countries using the immediately available and inexpensive tools created, produced and moved around by colonialism.
Gospel Day says
So much arrogance and ignorance in Walker’s whinging prose (whatever her ill-conceived sentiments, it’s an insult to poets to call this poetry). The “loaves and fishes” miracles recorded in all four Gospels had nothing to do with rich or poor (in Walker’s usage) but to show (among other things) that the Lord Jesus is all-sufficient to provide not only abundantly but super-abundantly beyond our needs. He doesn’t just provide our daily bread; he is the Bread of life—but only to those who “seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness.”
With regard to the great Reagan retelling of “The Little Red Hen,” it’s a good thing to remember that Scripture also clearly teaches that those who aren’t willing to work should not expect to be fed (2 Thessalonians 3:10). Of course, “not willing” isn’t the same as “can’t” and God’s Word speaks abundantly to caring for the weak and disabled etc. But that shouldn’t be confused with fuzzy thinking about some entitled group called “the poor.” Jesus had no such sentimentality.
I know other comments have made or hinted at these points; I just get so riled up about Walker and her ilk that I had to put in my two cents’ worth.
Westman says
Translation of “To Change The World Enough”: We must overthrow capitalism without fear.
Once upon a time there was a little red hen who scratched about the barnyard until she uncovered some grains of wheat. She called her neighbors and said ‘If we plant this wheat, we shall have bread to eat. Who will help me plant it?’
“Not I, “said the cow.
“Not I,” said the duck.
“Not I,” said the pig.
“Not I,” said the goose.
“Then I will,” said the little red hen. And she did. The wheat grew tall and ripened into golden grain. “Who will help me reap my wheat?” asked the little red hen.
“Not I,” said the duck.
“Out of my classification,” said the pig.
“I’d lose my seniority,” said the cow.
“I’d lose my unemployment compensation,” said the goose.
“Then I will,” said the little red hen, and she did.
At last the time came to bake the bread. “Who will help me bake bread?” asked the little red hen.
“That would be overtime for me,” said the cow.
“I’d lose my welfare benefits,” said the duck.
“I’m a dropout and never learned how,” said the pig.
“If I’m to be the only helper, that’s discrimination,” said the goose.
“Then I will,” said the little red hen.
She baked five loaves and held them up for the neighbors to see.
They all wanted some and, in fact, demanded a share. But the little red hen said, “No, I can eat the five loaves myself.”
“Excess profits,” cried the cow.
“Capitalist leech,” screamed the duck.
“I demand equal rights,” yelled the goose.
And the pig just grunted.
And they painted “unfair” picket signs and marched round and around the little red hen shouting obscenities.
When the government agent came, he said to the little red hen, “You must not be greedy.”
“But I earned the bread,” said the little red hen.
“Exactly,” said the agent. “That’s the wonderful free enterprise system. Anyone in the barnyard can earn as much as he wants. But under our modern government regulations productive workers must divide their products with the idle.”
And they lived happily ever after, including the little red hen, who smiled and clucked, “I am grateful, I am grateful.” But her neighbors wondered why she never again baked any more bread.
somehistory says
The Little Red Hen was one of my favorite kid’s stories and I gave a copy…printed in the 40’s… to my granddaughter last year.
Your edition is not as I recall….but it certainly fits the world in which we live today.
Westman says
It’s a version read by Ronald Reagan.
somehistory says
If I ever heard him, I don’t recall it. so, thanks for the info. He was a smart guy…all the way back before he became governor.
Reziac says
Found Reagan’s own reading here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rxCwAzS0EY
As to the ramblings of Alice Walker,
A whine of envy
Scattered about the page
Doth not a poem make.
Reziac says
And here’s Reagan’s version of “The Incredible Bread Machine” mentioned in the other recording:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sh7YduSJaBw
࿗Infidel࿘ says
I once bought a book called “Politically correct bedtime stories”. While this story wasn’t in that, it could well have been. Maybe the hen could have fed on the entrails of the duck, the pig, the cow and the goose once they were slaughtered for cooking ?
Billy Corr says
The Housman poem has a very simple rhyme scheme: A B A B then C D C D
Not too hard once you have that grasped how to do it:
You do not need to fear the poor
Unless they comes to steal your car
And then some to whine for more
It all depends on where you are
Some parts of town are really bad
With car thefts every day
But if you’re armed and screaming mad
The car thieves run away
Please try to dig out a book: ** Imitations of Immortality **
for brilliant parodies of Yeats, Wordsworth and so on
Billy Corr says
It took a while to find but here it is and available on Amazon* for a modest outlay:
“Imitations of Immortality” E. O. Parrot [Editor & author] Penguin / Putnam 1987
* Please try your local second-hand bookshop first. You are a better person for buying from them rather
than from the all-devouring monster Amazon. Good luck finding the book locally.
Incidentally, Alice Walker is a creative literary genius compared to Barakat
Mick says
You praise the spirit in which she writes,
I admit that sharing make sense.
She plays the harp and violin all right,
But where’s the border fence?
After Roy Campbell
Hugh Fitzgerald says
I’m with you there, of course: They use the snaffle and the curb all right, But where’s the bloody horse?
Mick says
Richard Craven has written a fine update of The Georgiad: The Wokiad.
He treats readers of the Spectator platform to extracts.
Phil Copson says
Anyone can write tosh like that – a favourite “non-limerick” being:
There was a young man of St Bees
Who got stung on the ear by a wasp
When they asked “Does it hurt?”
He replied: “Yes it does –
I’m jolly glad it wasn’t a hornet!”
Phil Copson says
“To Change The World Too Much” by AE Mouseman
Into my world a savage wind
From Eastern desert blows –
What banner flutters in it’s breeze?
Whose sails – whose swords are those?
A broken cross – a Christian slave
The vulture has his fill
The wolf within the fold surveys
The Red Dismembered Killed.
Gospel Day says
Clever. But please, “its breeze” not “it’s.” Let’s not make a banner of the egregious degringolade of Western education, viz. the replacement of the three Rs with woke theology and Islamic revisionism.
Phil Copson says
You may be onto something there, GD – those damned apostrophes are getting a bit too possessive…..
(This “Degringolade” – some sort of Mexican soft drink, is it?)
Gospel Day says
I’ve loved that word since Robert Spencer used it as the title of Chapter Eight in The History of Jihad. It should have the accent on the first “e” but sometimes that comes out as a weird symbol in these comments…but you’re right, it should be the name of a drink (not a soft drink but something with a worm in the tequila).
Phil Copson says
“Gospel Day says
Nov 29, 2023 at 8:05 am
I’ve loved that word – (degringolade) – since Robert Spencer used it as the title of Chapter Eight in The History of Jihad. It should have the accent on the first “e” …..but you’re right, it should be the name of a drink…..something with a worm in the tequila).
———————————————————————————————–
Like this?
In the land of the giant cicada
The living gets hada and hada
A tiny chi-hua-hua
Went totally lua-lua
On downing down Degringolada
Phil Copson says
Damn – that should have said “drinking down” not “downing down”….