Wild Fridays #19: I Wish I'd Written This

Show Me An Old Rebel 

Do not show me a young rebel,
whose eyes are bright
and whose tail is bushy.

Young rebels are fine and good,
but they are merely doing
what the young are meant to do.

Show me an old rebel.
One who keeps punching
when his hands are arthritic,
when her hair is white,
when his friends are all dead,
when her knees are shot,
when it hurts him to pee,
when her shoulders are so bad
that it would be much easier to punch down
than to punch up.

Show me an old rebel
who keeps standing up after being knocked down
over and over again,
year after year,
decade after decade,
who after the thousandth blow
merely spits out a tooth
and says "Son, you have no idea what you're dealing with,
do you?"

Are you a young rebel?
Are you Sticking it to The Man?
Are you upsetting the gray brainiacs
and knocking over their word castles?

That is fine.
Youth will youth.

But show me a young rebel
who became an old rebel,
who stuck with it through the setbacks
and the beatings and betrayals,
and the beatings and betrayals,
who watched the hippies become yuppies
and the protesters become pundits
and still kept a fire lit
amid the monsoons of infiltration
and the hurricanes of disappointment.
Who will close their tired eyes for a final time
without ever once having cast them to the ground
or peered up in imploring subordination.

That, my friends,
that is a true spirit.

If you are still a fiery rebel
even as everything is ripped away from you,
I will be humbled and awed by you,
because I will know that you will carry that with you to the grave.
And I will know that whatever you find on the other side
will be met
with that same defiant glare.

And I will sing your song when you are gone.

– Caitlin Johnstone 



Yes, I’m somewhat enamoured of Caitllin Johnstone just now. This poem turned up in my inbox this morning, and I immediately gave a mental cheer for the sentiments expressed. In fact I’d love to think I am one of the old rebels she depicts!

When I visited the Lincoln Memorial in Washington in 1998, my husband Andrew – who had been there before, and was keen to show it to me – obviously found Lincoln's statue and the Gettysburg Address deeply inspiring. It’s not that I didn’t, but I was surprised and even more moved by videos of the great freedom marches of the late 20th Century, in support of racial equality and women’s rights – so moved that uncontrollable tears poured down my face as I gazed.  As a young woman in Australia, I took part in our version of such marches, and in some of the anti-Vietnam War demonstrations and later peace marches, too.

Further, I’ve always found the Marseillaise the most stirring of all national anthems – even though a translation of the words, when I looked for one, revealed them to be very bloodthirsty, which gave me pause. I fire up in much the same way to some of the songs from Les Miserables. I want to grab a flag and start defending some barricades! (But do I want to kill or die? Well, no.)

Recently, a psychic who had only just met me channelled the phrase, referring to me, 'a woman who wants freedom'. It hit me in the middle of the chest, as a core truth about me. And yet, when it comes right down to it, I have to admit I’m pretty law-abiding despite some fiery convictions. And when I look back over my life, I see very few restrictions on me. So I’m not sure where this rebel spirit and freedom impulse come from, but this poem thrilled me this morning.

Perhaps that makes sense. After all, poets have always been in the forefront of freedom movements. If we don’t march, we do write. I remember Joan Baez (a great revolutionary in both words and actions) saying, when she herself had become grey-haired, that she had been wrong to try and shame Bob Dylan into coming out and marching with her and others. ‘He was writing the songs we marched to,’ she said, ‘It wasn’t his job to be on the streets as well.’ (Or something like that. I’m quoting from memory.)

I will aver that it's true I watched 'the hippies become yuppies / and the protesters become pundits / and still kept a fire lit', even if I have more stamina these days for signing petitions than marching.

As Caitlin herself told us, in the post I shared last Friday – and as she so exemplifies – our words can be our weapons: our magic wands, ‘mightier than the sword’.

Yes! White hair and arthritis (I have both) notwithstanding: ‘Aux armes, citoyens'!  



 

(Yes, that's me – posing defiantly in 2016. The graduation which the t-shirt refers to actually happened in 1962, when I was a young rebel.)

 Material shared here is presented for study and review. Poems, photos, and other writings and images remain the property of the copyright owners, usually the authors. However, Caitlin Johnson states at her blog that 'Everyone, racist platforms excluded, has my permission to republish, use or translate any part of this work (or anything else I’ve written) in any way they like free of charge.'