Reconstruction of Lost Things

By: Victoria Smith

 

I don’t know what triggered it:
Karen Carpenter singing Silver Bells
on the radio, or the vintage colored
light bulbs framing a display window.
I pull over and stop the car
till I could see the road again.
I want to see, touch, smell, taste, hear
Christmas again! But where to begin?
First: a galaxy of white lights around
the house, the tree trimmed with treasures
of Christmases past, nativity scene
where, they say, lies the reason for
the season, mistletoe prompting
kisses, wreath on the front door.
In the kitchen: steaming hot cocoa and
apple cider, muffins and cookies
rising in the oven, a flickering
cinnamon-scented candle,
a blazing fire, a serenade of carols.
But still, I cannot feel it—that magic
embracing the innocent,
anticipating what’s possible,
listening for hooves on the roof.
The neighbors lost their daughter in a plane
crash last summer—she was my daughter’s age;
around the world, still, children are starving,
women are raped, men kill and get killed.
All these broken lives—how
does one recover joy?
Not too soon, my son scurries down
the stairs as my daughter arrives
from college, and my husband’s feet
make a sound like thunder as they
shake snow clumps off his boots.
Deep from the well of my gut, I hear
a rumbling not unlike Old Faithful
makes before it unleashes its gift.

Poet’s Notes. Above poem was last published in the December 2015 issue of Elite Critiques Magazine. This is also not the first time I’ve shared this poem in this column. However, with the election of an unapologetically anti-immigrant U.S. president, it seems only fitting to republish it—for this certainly appears a time of loss, of prospective other losses not only for immigrants and refugees but for all Americans, if one is to believe Donald Trump would pursue his staunch anti-immigrant campaign promises and unabashedly racist, misogynist, and nationalistic protectionist stances. On the morning after the election, I posted on Facebook, “I feel like someone died, like I’m missing somebody I can’t even remember. As though a part of me was excised but I don’t know which because I feel a void where something used to exist. Oh, I know! I just remembered: I was under the illusion that America was the land of the free and the home of the brave, and of the just, and of mainly decent, kind, and compassionate human beings. Now I’ve awoken in the land of the Manchurian candidate, free of my illusion yet missing it like a phantom organ, where my spleen used to be.” Now, we’ve darned done it. The grim results I anticipated in my column last month are coming to pass. Truth is, everyone lost something in the recent elections and everybody will lose a lot more in ways many have likely underestimated—especially those who voted for Trump. I’m not a doom and gloom soothsayer; I’m merely stating a rational projection. There are studies and statistics that support the prediction that if Trump’s economic and political policies were to be implemented, they would cost the spiral the whole economy down into trillions more dollars in debt. And who would pay for this? All Americans—including the predominantly white working class citizen who would carry much of the burden of Trump’s pro-rich tax cuts and policies geared toward protectionist foreign and international trade policies (that—for those who went to college might remember, and for the benefit of those who did not—the basic college Econ 101 class teaches was the singular cause of the Great Depression of the 1920’s). As usual, the rich will only get richer; the poor poorer. Nothing will really change—except for the worse, especially for the marginalized sectors of society. Trump’s transition team is also notably filled with Washington lobbyists and Wall Street icons, contrary to his promise to “drain the swamp” and declare his administration’s independence from big corporate America and the finance industry giants’ interests. His candidates particularly for health and environmental protection heads, national security director, and defense and treasury secretaries all look like the fox that was assigned to guard the chicken coop.

But enough of pointing fingers and playing the blame game—question is: What are we going to do about it? In the face of all these prospective gloom and doom, what is there to look forward to in the new year? In this season of hope, is there really hope for the hopeless?

For good reason, I am averse to echo the customary mantra in times like this that hope is eternal and such similar fatuousness. Truth—another one, a grounding one—is that hope resides in action, not some airy Pollyanna fantasy, but in action informed by experience, wisdom, and a bold streak of selflessness, an antidote to the brazen act of misguided self-interest demonstrated by the typical Trump supporter who voted for Trump out of a mistaken belief that Trump would save their obsolete jobs and make them rich—again, which was what was truly behind their election campaign slogan, “Make America Great Again!” As it appears, they were only after their own myopic self-interests—in the vain hope of stemming the great tide of history and economics.

Already the taxpayers of Indiana are realizing the burden imposed on them by Trump’s Carrier deal, for example. They would end up picking the tab to artificially keep Carrier within their State and allow a mere less than half of Carrier workers (800 out of the original 1,800 who were going to lose the jobs to Mexico) to keep their jobs in the meantime, but clearly, not for long. For the numbers don’t add up enough to keep U.S. manufacturing companies like Carrier in the U.S. long-term. Federal and state tax incentives save companies like Carrier only about two per cent (2%) of their cost structure. The overwhelming portion of their real costs is in their labor costs, which amount to about ninety-eight per cent (98%). And labor rates in Mexico are still much lower than in the U.S. In the meantime, Indiana would be denying itself about seven million dollars in tax revenue over ten years, subsidizing each of the eight hundred workers who get to keep their jobs in the meantime at about $875 each yearly. (http://www.forbes.com/sites/eriksherman/2016/12/04/tru mps-carrier-deal-means-nothing-for-futurejobs/# 174a516f4c7b) Imagine and consider cloning such a deal across the nation over several states!

For once, I agree with Sarah Palin. She called the deal “an example of government intervention that could lead to ‘crony capitalism.’” One can’t arbitrarily stem the tide of the market economy without creating worse problems. Palin additionally pointed out, “Republicans oppose this, remember? Instead, we support competition on a level playing field, remember? Because we know special interest crony capitalism is one big fail.” (http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/sarahpalin- calls-out-trump-s-carrier-deal-warns-againstn691426) And this was exactly where the great mistake of the white working class Trump supporter glaringly lay: They had the asinine expectation that they could hang onto to their obsolete jobs without creating bigger problems for the whole country. And this is also where their inane selfishness could be clearly seen. For a segment of the population that had unilaterally appropriated what true American patriotism means, they are looking very unpatriotic indeed. They ranted against immigrants getting a free ride on their jobs, their taxes, and their country, and yet here they are—exposing themselves to the whole world as just another wanton group wanting a free ride themselves on the backs of all of us taxpayers—taxpaying immigrants, included.

All reason, logic, and math tell us that Trump can’t keep making artificial deals like this without causing more serious and grim consequences for the whole country, and that one can expect more companies to demand similar tax incentives to extort their way into suspending the relocation of their manufacturing facilities elsewhere in the world, where, by the way, lest it be forgotten, there will always be lower labor costs than in the U.S. “Suspending” is the key word here: They are merely delaying what is inevitable. Which squarely suggests that the solution lies elsewhere, as in working, perhaps, with—not against—the natural workings of the global economy, technology trends, and the needs for preserving and harnessing the energies of the natural environment in which all our resources are rooted. Trouble is, many white working class Americans frankly project themselves as clearly incapable or unwilling to reinvent themselves and their skills in order to adapt themselves to the new realities and needs of the U.S. and global economies, and seem to prefer to cast the burden of their inability to evolve with the rest of us—upon the rest of us, unlike most immigrants and refugees who had to reinvent themselves one way or another in order not only to survive but also thrive in the U.S. after being uprooted from their native countries. Talk about who’s lazy now or being a free rider! What political brownie points Trump earns in the meantime through the goodwill he builds with the relatively few workers whose jobs are temporarily saved will soon enough be erased when the greater majority of U.S. taxpayers start to feel the pinch from the significant costs and subsidies they have to carry to keep up this pretense.

Thus, back to my question: Is there hope for the hopeless in this season of hope? I bury my head in Pollyanna sands, desperately digging for a reply that could even make an iota of sense, hoping against hope. Oh, Santa—where are you when we need you? Or the Tooth Fairy? Or the Easter Bunny? Or Superman? Or Captain America? Anyone of you mythical yet otherwise great heroes—please? Cross my heart, Santa Baby—I’ve been a good girl this year.

(All rights reserved. Copyright © 2016 by Victoria G. Smith. For updates on her author events & publications, go to VictoriaGSmith.com. “Like” her on Facebook at Author Victoria G. Smith. “Follow” her on Twitter @AuthorVGSmith)