The wonder is hooray, we made it!
To the end of this weird rotten year.
For those of us who made it.
For those of us not dead or dying or
Imploding with existential dread, loneliness and fear.
The wonder is we impeached
the president, but did not convict.
And most people, sadly,
don’t even know the difference.
I read a whole book about the first time - Andrew Johnson
and the failure of Reconstruction - to make sure I did.
But the wonder is how no one talks about it:
4 million black men and women, freed
But not free at all - not even today.
And what it has to do with MAGA and how
Those who are not innocent, have never been made to pay.
How none of us are innocent, but all complicit.
All persons never having been equal: the American Way.
Trump as the direct inheritor of Johnson’s
Acceptable white supremacy;
Johnson as Lincoln’s irretrievable mistake.
Horrific legacy we must face:
what reparation can and will we now make?
But there are so very many challenges: this world on fire
And yet some still debate whether or not
there is such a thing as “man-made” climate change.
The wonder is how long we can deny, and bury
Our heads in the sand, and pretend
That it’s just this year, somehow, and
It will be better in 2021, magically.
The wonder is clear mornings now on my balcony
where I used to nightly obliterate and escape.
Today the sun comes up, sweet bird song
And coffee help my soul sit down, resting
And contemplating it all for one minute...
The wonder is there seems to be an infinite
amount of mornings just like this - until there isn’t.
