Greensboro's Two Wars

by Jean Rodenbough

Apr. 14, 2008

[Jean wrote this poem for entry in the "Muse on Greensboro" Poetry Contest, part of Greensboro's bicentennial celebration which is currently in full swing. We're glad to include it hear as we work to remember the past in a way that transforms our future.]

“Greensboro is intimately associated with the close of two wars.” The first one was “the triumph of one rebellion against oppression and in behalf of the political rights of man.” Yet the second rebellion had as its object “to perpetuate the right of one man to deprive another of all rights.”

– Adrian Whicker. “Special Correspondence of the Inquirer. Greensboro, N.C. July 6, 1865.” Published in The Philadelphia Inquirer Tuesday, July 18, 1865.

two wars, two purposes
freedom for some
enslavement for others
strange twists of war
conflicting goals
contradictions and deceptions
common fields of battle
one city two wars

today, these conflate, or multiply,
so that there is every cause
and every choice and every want
where all is equal in that nothing
is more than anything else
nor less than any other
and the battles are won with words
or with cash or inside power or
influence, and slavery is no different
from our definitions of freedom
for freedom has become the right
to believe whatever, despite the facts

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