Ode on the 100th Anniversary
Of the Panama Canal! (1914-2014)
By Dennis L. Siluk, Dr. H.c.
International
Latin Poet Laureate,
And Poet Laureate of
Central Peru (Recipient of the Gran Cross of San Jeronimo)
A
Tribute
I
Hold your head high, open your gates to the
seas
Beat on the drums, look at the blaze of
steel!...
Behold the deathless star that bows above
Your brow, and know that it bows to your
achievement!
Wherefore, give your flags to the skies,
And let the trumpets of your quest sound!
For think of it, it is one hundred years now
that your
Sons have journeyed through these eternal
canals,
Through valleys where once jungles and
mountains were,
Wherefrom, I say, saved man, his long journey
around!
II
Hold your head high, open your gates to the
seas,
That canal sublime, nobler than all Time!
From where the world in friendship calls
Across her Pacific and Atlantic
thoroughfares—
From Africa, and Asia, and North America, and
Europe, from seas beyond your keels,
From the cold lands of the south and north,
From the spine of the Andes, and its granite
walls:
From all those frontiers, has man brought to
You all his labors and his arts, his
greatness and gifts
Of mind; heart and soul, and even war
materials!
Yes, even war, from man’s ignorance of greed
and sin!
And with all of this, from man’s breath he
can cry
Victory for this 100th
Anniversary! Of man’s no longer
Beholding, to the Great Earth, for he has
done what
No other century has done, liken to Titans’
work, and
Yet how small is man, for such a feat! Hence,
let the
Skeptic gaze at man’s greeting, man at the
canal gates
Be always in harmony and in peace!
III
Henceforward, let man rise from the
best-part, and
Praise the Lord from the Heavens that he once
had seen
In a vision, such a destined goal, and
design, that he
Once was not blind, that he has triumphed
through the
Heights and brutish years, and through the
astounding
Ordeals; that he sought and found the steel
engines,
To shape for a hundred years, this human joy
and need.
Here also, do the marvels shine! No
boundaries for great
Minds! And yes, yes here the quite seraphim’s
gaze
Those who have given to men their strength,
and here,
Was where they sent to the Lord of Lords,
man’s dream!
IV
And yet the dream has not died, for still man
hungers to
Build higher and wider to the sky, from the
humble dust
And dream-vision, of that day, for tomorrow!
And yes, the human strength shall again serve
the
Common good, of the people of the world… In hopes
Man will be forever loyal to his race—which
lies beyond
The seas and man’s dismay, somewhere in
grace:
Called the human brotherhood, and to look
upon each
Face, as the much-loved face, God has given!
No: 4522
(8-14-2014) A Tribute
Artwork by the
author/ written by: Dennis L. Siluk, Dr. H.c.
Copyright©
8-14-2014 (placed on the internet 8-15-2014)
