Open Letter To Thomas Jefferson
Open Letter to Thomas Jefferson
You sir, destination unknown, I dare
To address. A son of worthy causes
For land vast in majesty and vast as
Vast can be in matters of liberty;
With ideals so prim and suffused with
Philosophical forethought derived from
Your bumper harvest of keen knowledge from
Poetry to paleontology;
You the offspring of music and science,
Master of the whims of public forum,
Framer of destiny of the nation,
Bearer of the conscience of masses and
Winning hurdler of political kinks.
Now, the moldering public discourse is
Unbearable. One can no more cover
One’s nose. Nowhere is a silent shelter
From megaphone of ubiquitous din.
Where is a refuge? Simply, know not I.
I beseech you, sir, for learned counsel.
As thundering wildebeest migration
Clouds the slopes of national horizon:
Tulip of your acclaimed Law of Nature
Lies in the path of a roaring rampage.
I beg to ask, why uncanny tactile
Projections of your mind failed to measure
And forecast proneness to such afflictions.
Sir, you did not proscribe such maladies,
Or provide cautionary bells, at least.
Where have all the magistrates gone, I ask?
As I flip pages of your Summary View:
Prefaced by a motto of Cicero:
“It is the indispensable duty
Of supreme magistrate to consider
Himself as acting for community,
And obliged to support its dignity,
And assign to the people, with justice,
Their various rights, as he would remain
Faithful to the great trust reposed on him.”
Your pristine flora of the applied skills
In statesmanship and proper decorum
Is being supplanted by scurrilous
Scions of egocentric rhetoric.
Pails of justice are perceived as empty
By the parched sectors of land of plenty–
Await quenching rain of tenderness, but
Clouds of compassion remain unseeded.
Please forgive the outburst of my verses.
To rein my pen is to muzzle my soul.
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