Find joy in the little things:
the glint of rust on flagpoles at dawn,
or squeak of shoes on desecrated marble.
Imperfections I’d given up on.
On the third Monday in January you’ll find me
writing an ode I can’t quite finish, like a New Year’s
resolution I’ll stick to next time, I promise.
I’m Jewish, which in America means I’m white,
which means I don’t represent our dispossessed;
I wish to neither be silent nor misspeak.
Sometimes, taking a break from the news and work,
I’ll spot the collected works of this or that poet
and, for a moment, have context for despair.
One might reasonably ask why any nonprofit, let alone a nonprofit lender, should dare to comment on politics. Isn’t that best left to pundits and politicians? In ordinary circumstances, I might agree—to a point. But these are not ordinary circumstances.
How lovely it would be to live in a nation where
poetry put down insurrections. Then I might bang out
this stanza and go sue a wolf for stealing the moon.
On a drizzly morning walk I stopped to let a hearse go by,
its pitch-black paint sweating polish, and as I waited
for the procession I thought about who profits from tragedy,
the business of loss, and who profits no matter what,
“Freedom is not a state; it is an act. It is not some enchanted garden perched high on a distant plateau where we can finally sit down and rest. Freedom is the continuous action we all must take, and each generation must do its part to create an even more fair, more just society.” – John Lewis
At last I’m free to visit Church today;
What State dare silence this ecstatic hymn?
Hallelujah, O Lord, how oft we pray
to be free—and now we’re free! Yet we brim
I try on a suit to look handsome for the moon
ask the mirror what I’ve gained and what I’ve lost.
I mourn the death of those yet to die,
seek an urn to hold the ashes of what might have been.
The relentless onslaught of lies, crime, bigotry, and corruption over the past four years has put many of us in the position of having to pretend that the abominable is not transpiring.