Insurrection in China

 I asked, artist, Rick Rose to do a rendering with what I felt were significant events in China. Of course, many of you are familiar with Tiananmen Square and the events that happened there over thirty years ago. I want to draw you attention to the banner on the bridge in Beijing last year, 2022, in which a protester displayed the work in protest against the government. Rick did a wonderful rendering that includes my poem. I am hoping to display this artwork at Vista Visions Art Gallery in Flint Township, Michigan.

Due to the artwork being small here, I will once again share my poem that is on the artwork. 

Insurrection in China

By Madeleine Graham

If ever insurrection were correct, It’d be knockin’ at China’s door

Where little ones are dyin’ at Chinese hands And Communist philosophy still stands

While mothers cry, while mothers cry

And look at our American President Shakin’ the hands of dictatorship

How can this be, You tell me… Most favored nation, I don’t agree

If ever insurrection were correct, It’d be knockin’ at China’s door

Where little ones are dyin’ at Chinese hands And Communist philosophy still stands

While mothers cry, while mothers cry

Look at Tiananmen Square And the lives lost there

Most favored nation, I don’t agree…How can this be? You tell me

And who’s in the banking now? Reno tied the hands of Freeh

Now freedom parishes in the name of greed

If ever insurrection were correct, It’d be knockin’ at China’s door

Where little ones are dyin’ at Chinese hands And Communist philosophy still stands

While mothers cry, while mothers cry

So Clinton rules the American land And nods in favor of the Communist man

Where’s the American ideal? Sacrificed to the silver serpent

Woven in the red blanket of the babes who will never be…All in the name of greed

If ever insurrection were correct, It’d be knockin’ at China’s door

Where little ones are dyin’ at Chinese hands And Communist philosophy still stands

While mothers cry, while mothers cry

If we all believed as the Communist do That women can’t provide…So must die

Where the children deformed can’t breathe a breath

The Einstein’s would never have been

Beethoven would never have played

Woolf and Tolstoy would never have written

Michelangelo never painted

Churchill never calmed the seas

And this song would not be

If ever insurrection were correct

It’d be knockin’ at China’s door

Where little ones are dyin’ at Chinese hands 

And Communist philosophy still stands

While mothers cry, while mothers cry 

But go ahead and wear the RED…And don the blood that is shed

Believe in the Communist Philosophy

And cling to the RED FLAG

Immersed in the blood of babes

But I’ll believe in humanity and civil liberty

But I believe in the judgment day…So I’ll continue to pray

For insurrection in China

For babes who are dyin’

For mothers who are cryin’

And lives lost in Tiananmen Square

For the Communist in China

Who embrace the bloodbath of babes

The RED FLAG must fall 

For the freedom of all

And greed must be seen as the green

Silvery serpent slithering in our Garden of Eden

Robbing us of babes 

In the season of spring

Note: I believe in changing hearts and minds not warfare

St. Vincent Sarah Fisher Home for Children

St Vincent Sarah Fisher Home for Children is facing the wrecking ball, my residence for ten years.

Both of my parents suffered from mental illness. My dad was able to work most of the time and was the glue that held our family together.

He was a WWII veteran and was a lifelong member of the Disabled American Veterans (DAV).

I am hoping when the new owners take charge of the orphanage that they do what they say and preserve the Chapel.

My father had us stop in the Chapel on Fridays when he picked us up and on Sundays when we returned to offer a prayer for our family.

I often asked my dad when we would be going to the Chapel, when will we be going home? His response was always the same, "In God's own time."

God's own time would be ten years, but my father had an unwavering faith. Struggles for me continue to this day as I have bipolar disorder, but I have been blessed with a loving community and the nuns who raised me, as I was two when I went to the orphanage, continue to play an important role in my life.

My Aunt Madeline, who recently passed away, was a true loving support along with my grandma.

All the years that I lived in the orphanage, I never learned why the other children were there. We just knew it was not home.

The nuns, the maids, kitchen staff, social workers, grandparents and volunteers all contributed to my upbringing and for that, I am grateful.

I was informed this is Van Gogh's birthday and he was posthumously diagnosed with bipolar disorder and today, March 30, is bipolar disorder day.

I am grateful I had the opportunity to know my mom as in those days, they didn't really have the best medicines.

I hope others will be inspired to share their personal story by me sharing part of my story. I wrote this in a private section on Facebook that is reserved for the children and staff of the orphanage.