Can’t Help but Wonder

By Ken Delpit

Can’t help but wonder
What’s to become of us all.
Can’t say it’s a blunder
When it’s done as resolved.

Can’t help but remember
In protests of the past,
April or November,
Beaten, jailed, tear-gassed.

Can’t help but make note that
Huge prices were paid.
Wasn’t no joke that
A nation’s guts were be-splayed.

Can’t help but recall hope,
Despite most precious tolls,
Light cleansed then, like soap,
Baring leaders without souls.

Can’t help but recognize
Times are so not the same.
What now affronts open eyes
Seems to carry no blame.  

Can’t help but lament
Now, leaders duck and cower.
They grease our descent
And, deny us our power

Can’t help but feel helpless
I hate that it’s so
We used to clean up our mess
Now, it’s just part of the flow.

Bio:

In the troubled times that opened the twenty-first century, Ken Delpit recalls the troubled times of the 1960s and 1970s.

It would seem that turmoil and protests are book-ending his life. He is struck, not only by the similarities, but even more by the differences between then and now, especially by the differences in how we, as a nation, react to and handle the troubles.