"To see the Summer Sky

Is Poetry, though never in a Book it lie -

True Poems flee."

~Emily Dickinson

The season of freedom is upon us. Books closed, classes dismissed, exams taken and forgotten. Endless days stretching before us, the heat pressing in close, the laziness stirring in our bones. As students, we wile away our days away - taking vacations, working half-heartedly, relaxing in air-conditioned rooms.

Summer was once a flash point for passion and civic engagement - look at what one fateful summer in the '60s did - the passion of the people flowing into the streets, the heat creating tensions that found expression through violent upheaval. It changed the fabric of a nation, and affected generations to come.

Last summer, apartheid Israel invaded Lebanon and devastated a nation, while starving the Palestinians into extreme poverty. Thousands of innocents died. We stood out on the streets and waved flags and passed out brochures, and hoped our work on a grassroots level would mean something.

It seems as if we would rather forward emails and passionately discuss what we know little about then take this time to live our convictions. To learn, to grow, to stand for something. And so it seems empty - endless summer days, wasting away...while our world goes to hell.

What if apartheid Israel invades Palestine?
What if more Afghanis die?
What if the situation in Iraq gets even worse?
What if the Democrats running are atrocious, and the Republicans even worse?
What if more Guantanamo Bay detainees attempt suicide?
What if we continue to contribute to global warming?
What if our morals lose meaning, and our generation loses its way?
What if we cease to care?

Maybe we don't, already. Summer seems to be a time for passion, for heat, for light -let's hope we use it to do something with ourselves. To become catalysts for change in a world that desperately needs us.