[I've waited and
listened and thought and tried to process the events of the last week and a
half. In the wake of the flap over the "Hamilton" cast petition to Mike Pence, I'm allowing myself now to spend a moment just feeling, and this is what it feels like. I hope I'm
over-reacting, because as I read through this, it sounds way too much like a
dirge. ]
I. 8 November 2016
Just-past-dawn-light, bright shine on a bluer than blue Sound;
beyond, the orange-tinted islands, Atlantic bluer still,
deep water blue, stretching all the way to the Bay of
Biscay...
Election Day, 2016: on the road to the tall white steepled church
where voters will name themselves, deposit decisions.
The cinnamon, amber, carrot, pumpkin, ginger trees
shout their last vibrant burst into the crisp morning.
I recall a man tossing rainbow bubbles on the Eastern Prom
two days ago, one after another; he manipulated wands
to release them into the air, fragile, light, multi-colored,
suspended, sliding on barely sensed currents,
falling slowly, slowly, slowly to burst and shatter,
suddenly innumerable, unrecoverable shards of light.
Their breaking was breath-taking, like water droplets
momentarily revealed before forever disappearing,
like words printed on a burning page,
dissolving into ash.
II. 9 November 2016
The Sound's surface ripples under a gray wind
that sweeps the last of the leaves away; skeletal black branches
shudder as it passes, carrying truths on its stream,
their broken dregs draining, dispersing, on erratic air,
pages out of a forgotten book too long unread,
while flickering screens chatter unintelligible noises
to we, the People, fragmented bright butterflies of souls,
who drift on unseen currents so confidently,
so righteous, whilst unknowing we fall, slowly, slowly, slowly
until the People bursts apart
into silenced silence, into splintered atoms,
the more perfect union desecrated
as its covenant crumbles.
S.V. Lowery
19 Nov 2016
