Presidents and Poets

Their names have become hollowed out husks blown about the graveyards of history. Emperors who once claimed divine favour and the imprimatur of the gods now seem profane, despotic caricatures of their age. Loud cheers have ossified to a silence or a curse lodged in the throat of the citizenry. Power still seeps its poisons into the body politic, even now into Prime Ministers, Premiers and Presidents of so called united states. I look for a place to find a little peace from the crowd and the howls of an angry world. Where once churches held a sacred quiet, they too have become loud stadiums for opposing forces, doctrinal battlegrounds between the lost and the saved. I retreat to that private space where like souls meet, a room somewhere, a forest or a beach, or a corner of one's own garden and there teach myself to listen. I hear what has always been there, transcending the reign of emperors, wealth, privilege and the power of the State. And so it is, I hold to my chest a well worn book of poems by that saint, Emily Dickinson, and here - renew my faith and find a little rest.