Negative history is less likely to repeat itself if a majority of people listen to our proven poets and prophets. Sometimes a poet is both.

In his poem “Four Preludes to Playthings of the Wind,” Carl Sandburg seemed to foresee the Trump effect. In the process of President Trump keeping his campaign promise to drain the swamp, Sandburg envisioned large lizards would join big rats on land after a windstorm blew away mankind. I will quote Sandburg’s third stanza.

It has happened before.
Strong men put up a city and got a
nation together,
And paid singers to sing and women to warble:

We are the greatest city,
the greatest nation,
nothing like us ever was.

And while the singers sang
and the strong men listened
and paid the singers well
and felt good about it all,

there were rats and lizards who listened
… and the only listeners left now
… are the rats and the lizards.

Tom Driscoll
Poulsbo