Poetic response to the “What You Leave Behind” (or erasure poem) prompt.
Each New Generation
If we can pass on,
even just a drop,
of what we've learned
from our pain and gain,
maybe next generation
can start one foot
from where we are,
just as we
benefit from
hard lessons learned
from last generations.
Will they learn?
Did we learn?
Sometimes one wonders,
but there must be
since civilization
has made progress
however slight.
This poem, Each New Generation, addresses the falsity of the notion that each new generation is inferior to the one/s before. This is a theme I’ve pondered off and on over the decades. The prompt and this poem are intertwined.
Source text:
It is unlikely we will notice individual drops, but the drops add up. Eventually, they can move mountains. The enslavement of one human by another has been a staple of human societies for as many centuries back as anyone can imagine, yet in the past two hundred years, slavery has become seen as a perversion of human relationships, and is legally banned everywhere. This is not to say that no longer is one human enslaved by another, that is not true. It is to say, though, that human slavery is no longer an open, acceptable, and accepted human practice. There are laws against it everywhere. The goal now is to enforce those laws. Some even have the goal of educating every human being on the planet in such a way that every human will recognize honor and respect every other human being. Obviously, we have a ways yet to go! But, the process is in motion.
Every generation (at least back to the Romans) seems to bewail the inadequacies of the generation/s coming along behind them. Yes, there are differences, and some aspects of the younger ones are not recognized, but if the new generations are as truly worthless as older ones like to say, then there would be no human progress at all. Progress can seem slow, and some times there are setbacks, but human civilization has advanced across the centuries and there is no reason to suspect that will stop.
A reluctant carbon-based life-form, Herrmann, is an award winning, internationally published poet, historian and author, in print and online, despite abusive childhood with dyslexia, ADHD; now compounded by cyclothymia, anxiety disorder, and PTSD. Surprised to be on a Kansas farm, he’s fond of grass waving under wind, trees, and moonlight.
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