WE HAVE FORGOTTEN
WE HAVE FORGOTTEN: WE ARE LOST A Prose Poem
By Susan Glenn Lampe JUNE 2025
The Caucasian men have declared war against women (again) removing them from military posts and the Pentagon, dismissing them as presidents of universities as if they can be easily discarded, labeling their accomplishments, their medals, their positions worthless, less than anything men could achieve. These women are told they lower the bar; they interfere with men’s abilities to achieve, they hold them back but these are the lies of men. Sadly, this time the women seem resigned, weary of the men’s eternal need to find them less than equal. They are patient. They know this time will not last. More painful are the attacks on pregnancy, as if the men could understand this strange quality women have to bear a child, something many men seem unable to understand or honor. The men seem insistent on grabbing control of women in this way, enforcing laws to forbid women health care essentials like abortion and miscarriage, closing hospital emergency room doors to women in distress, pushing them onto asphalt parking lots to deliver a child, a sacred new being. How appalling!
How easily men forget these feminine beings are their mothers, daughters of all kinds to include stepdaughters and granddaughters, aunts, cousins, grandmothers even neighbors, friends, lovers, classmates, nurses, caregivers. They are advised to return home to clean and cook, care for babies and/or the elderly. No wonder births are dropping since men vote down all measures for childcare, food assistance and programs like Head Start for early education.
As I approach the age of 80, my heart aches for I have seen this scenario repeat. I began to march in my twenties as all men were called to join the endless wars like Vietnam. There was no choice. Then many fought for Civil Rights, against segregation in education, another endless war to make racism a reason to call someone “less than.” More recently both my daughters have marched at times for health care rights for women and one wore a pink pussy hat knitted with tiny ears in support of Planned Parenthood. Now women march against a president who uses cruelty and threats and endless lawsuits to get his way not as a leader but as a man, corrupted by power and selfishness. Women know how to march when our freedoms are denied and blocked. We know how to march; we seem to be forever marching.
Perhaps we should consider using midwives only to deliver our children, remove men from all aspects of pregnancy other than providing sperm since they seem insistent on interfering with our pregnancies and health care. In despair, I seek solace on the deck of my home over water but the feelings are sharp and unbearable and progress never seems to hold so I begin to sob, large, wracking sobs, the sound leaving my deck to flow out above the water. My husband joins me and taps my arm, points to a fir tree that leans above the water. A bald eagle swiftly but softly lands on the treetop of what we call the eagle tree since generations of eagles have landed there and we have even witnessed the adults teaching the squawking, frightened young to fly. Here with the eagle is the remembrance of who we are, spiritual beings trapped in human bodies, insecure, but like the eagle, we are destined for greatness.
As my husband points I see an eagle land at the top of this storied tree. “It is a sign to you,” he says. “The eagle has come to comfort you.” For awhile the bird remains, then lifts his magnificent dark gray wings to soar out above the water, to circle and circle as if putting on a performance for us, a performance of freedom. How great he is, how regal, how majestic. He is a reminder that we could be more, we could strive to be better, to be kind, to foster love, not hate, to find leaders who inspire and guide with kindness and strength, not cruelty. The eagle brings remembrance of how tiny man remains, insecure, but like the eagle, we are destined for more than pettiness. Women are the bearers of life just as poets bear messages and inspiration. To bear a child is a great accomplishment, something that our male counterparts can never achieve but they mock a woman’s attempt to bear a child, say they know better just as they design religion in man’s image, not as God and his messengers have taught us. We have forgotten our purpose; we have forgotten our spiritual purpose. We have forgotten who we are. The men in leadership have cast us aside but they are weak and selfish, craven and obsessed with power and wealth. We have forgotten who we are. We have forgotten.
Teaching the teen eagles to fly
The Eagle Tree on Orcas Island
Sunset over the Olympic Mountains seen from the deck of our home in Union, Washington