An old poem I wrote while I was in Grenada Spain in 2005

The Strength of Spain

by Stephen Gluck

Spanish Glory

Strength, power, and wealth

Religious fanaticism

Divine romanticism

Historically, Spain came to be.

Historically, his and her story

Their stories, Stoically

We do not feel

The pain was, but now, not real

Rhetorically, the interpretations are many.

Normalmente,

El Preguntar de Historia

Es una fecha, nosotros elegimos,

Y una Por que?, nosotros resolvemos.

Si es posible!

Que es una solucion?

Una si y un no? Y Por que?

Que es mejor?

Que es menor? Que es peor?

Que podemos usar para hoy?

Para hoy? For now?

Para hoy! For now!

When we ask about a date;

A time, a place, a people

Their God, their King, their Country

And the relation between: friend and enemy

We confuse mind with time and fate.

This confusion of mind

From a past to be and a future forgotten

Is completely put together

By a Spanish Philosopher

Who's though we'll grind.

George Santayana, "Those who cannot remember the pas are condemned to repeat it."

To remember,

A truth we met and have since departed,

A child of 13

With 200 years of being?

Perhaps 'those' are not the members.

1808: Un fecha que yo eligo

'Those' being a people, a culture

Con el pasado?

Cual pasado?

'The' is the problem from some time ago!

Relativism, Pluralism,

Many-ism and thought-vision.

Projecting our thoughts and

Seeing our reflections of

The mind of a people from

The memory we choose.

Factualism, Rigidism,

Structurally singular and

Continuously the same.

The echo from time speaks to

Us as fate whom we become as

The choice the peoples' mind makes.

My thought-vision

A kaleidoscope, not a tunnel.

Multi-angular is my projection

Forever fixing my reflection

Looking at history like light through a prism.

1808 and whom do I name?

Spaniards, French, or British?

2008 and who do I blame?

Manuel Godoy, Napolean Bonaparte, or Lord Nelson?

From where

Does such strength spring?

The land, the wealth,

The people, or their health?

Or does it lie in the royalty's lair?

The royalty

Power given, power taken, power had.

Inherited through the family tree

Although natural, there is the holy

And the movement in-between.

This power,

The ability to destroy or create society,

Created naturally through sex,

Or spiritually by divine interest,

Is strongest when the mind blossoms like a flower.

To blossom,

Opening unto the world

Taking in knowledge

Stamped with a pledge

To better society from top to bottom.

I argue that essentially

The question of Spain's strength in 1808

As a question of time and date

Is a confusion of mind and fate

Implying the distinction between then, now, and soon to be.

My solution

In keeping continuity with history

Is to contrast and conjugate

Then with now in order to re-create

Dialectically World thought since sequential-ism is confusion.

1808 and 2008

Two dates between now

Of one we think we know

The other we ought to know

Only through togetherness will the benefits accumulate.