I Was Poor And Did Not Know It... a muse to consider in a world where the poor are not always in poverty

[Ronald A. Nelson COL, USA, Retired]

I was poor and I didn’t know it… I was happy and they said I was sad… I was ignorant until they taught me....

Then I saw, that I was poor…  that my happiness was denial, and in my ignorance… I become their victim... No longer happy, no longer glad.

I have seen the world… where children sit naked in a puddle… their bellies swelling, from lack of nourishment… but, with such a smile, it would make an angel cry.

I have seen the ignorant living in squalor… their hovels of mud, with thatched roofs, baked by the sun… but, they did not know they were victims, until I had come.

I have seen the ocean breach the shores, where dark skinned women… waded in the brine, as they had done since the beginning of time…

I watched as their children danced, beneath the palms… I saw their dirty faces… As, the wind blew their hair I could hear the muffled sounds of laughing… dancing in the air.

I watched the sun set as they toiled in the sand... their weathered bodies burnt brown... their hair tied with the winds of time... these poor figures of sublime delight..

I watched as they walked home at night... carrying their burdens... atop their heads, their legs bent low, but never a complaint... not even from the old.

As I drew nearer… they could see clearer.  And, what was once a cry of joy… in their happy soul… Became the woeful morn of victims... to behold.

RA Nelson

COL. US Army (ret.)

The Western world with all its knowledge often acts in ignorance… and with their arrogance… proclaims the cry of joy… victims.

Reply

[Ricky Tanner]

electronics are a burden on our generation if you get a group together half of them are on their phone in a cyber world and not even aware of what is taking place around them I fear the next generation will lose all freedoms except the ones the government approve of

[Ronald A. Nelson COL, USA, Retired]

Absolutely... Ricky.  When we look back on life It is almost always the simple things in life that we remember with joy... those things that bring us close to our loved ones and the land.  If only we would grasp that early on and feed upon it as a Nation... as our forefather's once did.  Then America would once again be that Great City ... set upon a Hill ... calling out to a tired and weary world: “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.”

America is in danger of loosing her calling ... her love of the simple and pure... As she becomes heavily weighted with the burdens of men... with the trappings of power and corruption.  Let us recall the better angels of our past and resurrect a new and better monument too our Forefather's legacy... one of compelling resolve to endure and promote an even greater society ... One Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all... not just a select few, an oligarchy of the powerful. 

[Ricky Tanner]

when I was a kid we carried our drinking water from a spring and drank from a dipper had a out house out back and most of our food we either raised or brought in from hunting and fishing in many ways I wish I was that poor again

[Ronald A. Nelson COL, USA, Retired]

True poverty is not measured in silver and gold...not in the things we have or the power we yield... true poverty is found in the spirit... in an empty soul, where joy is absent and love is a stranger...  poverty abounds. 

[Ricky Tanner]

very true