04-18-2022, 10:38 AM
https://cdn.pixabay.com/photo/2012/09/01...7_1280.jpg
Mountain Heart
Cold as stone he stands
rooted from his waist up
in a mountain that was not
even known when he became
its first and, really, only
president.
Somewhere just below
where jackhammer carving ends
his heart of stone still beats
slow, once in four years
pulse of a continent.
Over his shoulder Jefferson
libertine so mad he wore
his own hair (the idea!)
and made sport with women
he married or he owned
whispers grand ideals
that made Washington
mere President and not
King as God meant him to be.
Far from both Lincoln smiles
less sadly than does Washington
for he made an omelette of
paired eggs the two had broken
and died of an Easter
often raised but never risen.
And poor Teddy of the Bear
glasses without glass
blind in one eye
making empire without emperor
like Washington’s kingdom
without king
shadowed, shaded, incomplete.
But the mountain heart persisted
beating for two centuries until
in one diseased and fraudulent
quadrennial it broke.
Mountain Heart
Cold as stone he stands
rooted from his waist up
in a mountain that was not
even known when he became
its first and, really, only
president.
Somewhere just below
where jackhammer carving ends
his heart of stone still beats
slow, once in four years
pulse of a continent.
Over his shoulder Jefferson
libertine so mad he wore
his own hair (the idea!)
and made sport with women
he married or he owned
whispers grand ideals
that made Washington
mere President and not
King as God meant him to be.
Far from both Lincoln smiles
less sadly than does Washington
for he made an omelette of
paired eggs the two had broken
and died of an Easter
often raised but never risen.
And poor Teddy of the Bear
glasses without glass
blind in one eye
making empire without emperor
like Washington’s kingdom
without king
shadowed, shaded, incomplete.
But the mountain heart persisted
beating for two centuries until
in one diseased and fraudulent
quadrennial it broke.
Non-practicing atheist