Eulogy

Eulogy for our Country

I am writing this while I still can,

and sharing it while I am still able,

before my keyboard is frozen

my internet banned

and my voice silenced.

This is my eulogy for our country.

Now with each flourish

of that golden presidential pen

our rights

our hopes

our choices

our hard won lessons

our questioning, questing minds

constrict

a little further. 

This is my eulogy for our country.

We have elected a man

who has confused business acumen

with leadership.

We have elected a man who will sell our souls

for the right price

to the highest and best bidder.

I do not blame those who believed his sparkle and show.

They did not vote for him to spite those of us

who could see the foreshadowing of today

all too well. 

They voted for him out of

fear,

ignorance,

closed-eye denial

anger.

They are our neighbors wearing thousands of different faces.

I pity the moment when each of them realizes, finally realizes

the price we will all pay

for their simple ballot mark.

This is my eulogy for our country.

I was born at the end of 1966

to a country still reeling from  the empty space

where John F. Kennedy

once stood

and learned to walk and talk

as our country bled through the losses

of Martin Luther King Jr., Malcom X and  Robert Kennedy. 

I grew up in a country that flailed and twisted

through the horrific uncertainty of the Vietnam War.

I grew up in a time where the fire of protests nudged up against

the mindless goo of variety shows 

and the dizzy, swaying idealism of Woodstock. 

I watched with increasing awareness

as each president we elected 

struggled through their personal flaws

and political ambitions.

Some succeeded.

Some failed.

Some hovered between the two.

In all of my 50 years of life 

though I have at times doubted our country,

questioned our leaders,

cheered each president’s better choices

worried about each presidential mistake—

in all of my 50 years of life

I never caught this glimpse of the end--

the end of this grand experiment

that drew together our diverse hopes and lives

into a messy, flexing, imperfect miracle.

But now I see the possible end of those

formerly self-evident truths

that united these states.

I watch each flourish of that golden presidential pen

and feel a clenching terror

at each facet of our lives that he signs away.

Make no mistake-

we will live on

but I can't help but fear what we will become.

And so

I am writing this while I still can,

and sharing it while I am still able,

before my keyboard is frozen

my internet banned

and my voice silenced.

This is my eulogy for our country. 

1/24/2017