It’s not so bad.

The realization that the second
major people-governing concept
has failed…

First there was Higher Power, gods
invoked so close to us on
earth that they came to our
dreams, spoke and guided us.

Folks like those under the prophet
Samuel kicked that theocracy out
years ago, thought kings might
be a better way, for “Hey—

all the other nations was doin’ it!”
The Hebrew god warned kings might
be corrupt, finally that on the day
we complained, he wouldn’t hear.

So the Greeks rose up like a Narcissus
flower, rejected single male power,
and invented dēmokratia, democracy –
Long live people-rule, at last!

The Romans liked it, spread it
around by force, liked Jesus—spread
him around by force, combined the two
to steal land in the New World,

a Dutch mapmaker calling it all…
America.  The natives still had their
higher powers, excited by the earth
and their place under a Great Spirit.

But we had our democracy, bible, and
most powerful of all, it would seem,
gun powder.  An Asian invention, fireworks
English and other Euros used to kill.

So people-rule it was and has been,
although I’ve never seen people rule
during an earthquake, forest fire
or hurricane.

“It’s flooding, you say? Well, let’s
hold a vote,” never much swayed
the elements, but still we claim that
“people-power is best.”

Until it isn’t.  Until two parties argue
and argue and do nothing.  Until you
realize there is no power in hallways,
marble and human art, that the

natives may have had it more right
than wrong, the waterfalls, valleys,
rivers and mountains of their
higher powers holding joy and sway.

I used to talk and write of Geocracy,
God, Earth and People-rule, but
know the word in front offends, so
onward I look, want to join?

People don’t always rule, so let’s
move on… There’s something better
at the end of this tunnel, so keep
digging toward the light.

Democracy has died because it was
never in the first place right.

The combination of people, honoring
the earth and invoking a higher power
seeming to this poet the truth,
a way to it, giving blindness sight.