By Harold Vance
We go to school for a degree,
Not an education.
Why did I pay
All that money
For a simple piece of parchment?
All that time
For nothing gained
But ways of the world,
As our cares are turned toward money and material things,
And we forget to care for the people.
And again, it comes back to Money,
Mammon,
Mollock,
Whatever name you give that beast,
It matters not, because he knows your name.
And he screams it out load
With a roar that rattles mountains.
And if his scream doesn’t reach your ear,
The resounding, reverberating echo will,
As it’s carried on the wind that exudes from the people’s lips.
GAAAH!
I SCREAM BACK AT YOU, BEAST!
Though my voice is pitifully small. I simply smile, thinking of
David’s story,
Slaying that Goliath,
Or Samson, slaying hundreds
With the jawbone of an ass,
Or Christ, Himself, a single man
Who walked the world with Love
And conquered it thus.
And I know that I, too, have the innate strength
To stand up to you,
And bow down no more.
Harold lives in the midst of the beautiful mountains and streams in New England, and works as a program guide in an alternative high school in Vermont. He received his Bachelor’s of Arts in English from Green Mountain College, in Poultney, VT. Harold is very excited and looking forward to his upcoming marriage this summer to Nicole Stoodley.