I was walking in the wood late in evening, enjoying wild birdsong and dining on a delicious landscape of somber hardwood seasoned with a dash of savory ice on branches now long bereft of rattling leaves, and as I approached a stream of hard and silent water, there boldly came an apparition upon my reverie. It was an ageless man of whom I felt no dread, yet anticipation of his purpose consumed any thought I might entertain to ignore or depart from him.
It was plain from his dress and demeanor that he was a soldier, adorned in a crisp blue long coat with the boldest of black threefold hats. His trousers were of white cotton and bore no scratch or mark of his trek in the wood, nor were any brass buttons missing from his breast. Perplexion was fixed upon his countenance as he stared at me and in his presence, strange thoughts of shame of long-endured passivity weighed heavily on my bearing. “From whence”, said he, “do ye hail, who so casually tread this wood? Is it not the same land upon which I, among thine forbears and fathers shed my blood to provide thee with a sacred and free republic?”
Fright, not at his presence, but at his seeming insistence for answer, overwhelmed my heart as I could but stammer words that might be interpreted that, indeed, this was a continuum of that hallowed land. As I stood in awe of such bewilderment as he displayed, it came to me that he wept silently as he spoke words which pierced my heart with arrows from a former time, a time when this nation was but in it’s youth. “Doth not the same God redeem thy souls, is not the Savior of man the same in this day as He of long ago? Hast thy people forgotten the valor with which we of hope and incredible vigor and relying on Providence braved deadly volleys of rank musket and cannon balls to gain thy sovereignty and prosperity? How then, has an evil enemy so stealthily crept upon, and forsooth, overtaken this nation today?”
“This is a place beyond that land which you secured,” at last spake I, “As years passed, lesser men of lesser heart appeared, gained status endowed of evil by mammon, and came tempted, as knowledge of vast tracts beyond the nation you knew, came about, by great deceit and dishonor, to wrest from rightful owners the abundant and fruitful lands beyond that which your army secured.” As my confidence waxed, I continued, “He of Providence was denied, yet might of weapons from whence malicious heat from the forges of Satan’s armouries had not yet dissipated, were put to use to diminish, to defeat and yea, to slay those by whom fair title was claimed.”
“As scores of years became centuries, all but the Creator forgot the wicked abrogation of treaties once foreordained to be honored as leaders continued in moral decline, and colonial appropriation of lands and nations increased the world over, but especially in his nation – descendants of those peoples with whom your leaders treated were slain and imprisoned and vanished into memory. Indeed, the banner under which your drums sounded amid the blue-white smoke of cannon is changed now, by many added insignias to that number of thirteen by which your blood gained liberty.
“Must thee and thy progeny, therefore, be thus accursed as to receive upon thyself such waxing theft and murder as this which ye bear witness and yet lift not thy hand to resist? In mine years, would neither citizen nor soldier deign approach the Almighty Creator for prayer belabored with such cowardice weighed upon his conscience. And now in another place ye witness again the theft of lands and slaughter of rightful owners and say nought for fear.”
“I shall now return whence I have dwelt nigh four and a half hundreds of years and once more watch, share tears with those with whom I served, for my own blood and that of my companions, forbears of yesteryear, that ye should so lightly and cowardly abandon, yea and forsake, the sovereignty of this land for which we fought and died. Farewell, yet still pray thee for thy long-ignored want of Providence.” As his last words sadly reached my ears, he began to walk away as he cried now aloud, slowly and completely evaporated into the woodland, but his wailing cries echoed, and if one listens, especially on days when those who purport to lead us slavishly perform acts of obeisance to – and among – our enemies, his piteous cries can still be heard.
MK