And, sometimes with a whoosh!
at others with an oosh, glub sog
the year went to its dying.
What had graced its days,
what burdens the nights shroud in fog,
who fought evil past its mere decrying?
We and they, perhaps, and more unseen
the far-flung saints and heroes
those close, near home, those in between.
Whose Cassandra voice
looks deeply, shouts into the mist
Oh, freedom! Oh, humanus beneficium: choice!
Who mourns a principle's demise
as if it be the flesh's own kin,
while holders of the reins despise
all that does not add to power
to their fatted stations' bellies
this amassing of control their glory hour?
The conscience-hearted volunteer
with tender words, checkbook, or ladle
feels a gnaw not hunger but of fear
if he, if she, is yet sensate.
Perhaps another year of fragile grace
till liberty devouring wolves ingratiate
and gull the final necessary pawn
and cut the tenuous thread to Edenic earth
and we awake to find America gone.
〜
November 25, 2009