04-06-2024, 04:09 AM
Throwing Shade
We say that one man’s fame
eclipses that of one less brilliant
as did Achilles Hector,
Caesar, Pompey
or Gustavus, Wallenstein.
But what of one whose contradictory
dual natures battle to see which
will be remembered while the other
merely casts a little shade
upon his history?
Grant, for example, bankrupt
and in later life duped by corruption
but between those poles four years
of awful majesty
or Lee whose storied reputation
as a strategist eclipses
his more lasting role promoting
reconciliation, dignity
in defeat (here, the shadow)
he would not fully own.
For lives are stellar light
with umbra and penumbra
never totality.
We say that one man’s fame
eclipses that of one less brilliant
as did Achilles Hector,
Caesar, Pompey
or Gustavus, Wallenstein.
But what of one whose contradictory
dual natures battle to see which
will be remembered while the other
merely casts a little shade
upon his history?
Grant, for example, bankrupt
and in later life duped by corruption
but between those poles four years
of awful majesty
or Lee whose storied reputation
as a strategist eclipses
his more lasting role promoting
reconciliation, dignity
in defeat (here, the shadow)
he would not fully own.
For lives are stellar light
with umbra and penumbra
never totality.
Non-practicing atheist