Of Two Minds - edit3

[dukealien]

Of Two Minds


I don’t believe some evil other hand
built those dark Monticello passages
which let a virile Thomas Jefferson
indulge in its slave quarters secretly.
No, he designed and walked their ways and knew
their purpose but forgot for hours and days–
much as that gifted polymath believed
his god an immanent but unconcerned
endowing, blind creator of his world–
most days, and while he wrote of human rights.
But other times he trembled to reflect
with ever-mounting dread, that God is just.

edit2;

I don’t believe some evil other hand
built those dark Monticello passages
which then permitted Thomas Jefferson
to penetrate slave quarters secretly.
No, he designed, he utilized and knew
about them but forgot for hours and days–
much as that gifted polymath believed
his god an immanent but unconcerned
endowing, blind creator of his world–
most days, and while he wrote of human rights.
But other times he trembled to reflect
with nightly mounting dread, that God is just.


edit1;

I don’t believe some evil other hand
built those dark Monticello passages
which then permitted Thomas Jefferson
to visit its slave quarters secretly.
No, he designed and utilized, and knew
about them but forgot for hours and days–
much as that gifted polymath believed
his god an immanent but unconcerned
endowing, cool creator of his world–
most days, and while he wrote of human rights.
But other times he trembled to reflect
with nightly mounting dread that God is just.

original version;

I don’t believe some evil other hand
built those dark Monticello passages
which then permitted Thomas Jefferson
to visit its slave quarters secretly.
No, he designed and utilized, and knew...
but not, perhaps, each hour of each day.

Just as that gifted polymath believed
his god an immanent but unconcerned
endowing, cool, impersonal Creator–
most days, and while he wrote of human rights.
But other times he trembled when he thought
with yearly mounting dread that God is just.