After the First Month
With the first month of the new Administration behind us—and what a month it has been—many of us are pining for the “no drama Obama” years. We didn’t wake up each day with dread that the Republic might have been snatched from us overnight. We didn’t assume that the news was fake. We didn’t think our government officials might be colluding with those who would destroy us.
And as David Plotz, former editor of Slate, observed recently on the Slate Political Gabfest—“One of the things that is quite remarkable about (Obama): You have an eight year Presidency, not a whiff of scandal—no personal scandal, no financial scandal. It’s been an extraordinarily ethical, cleanly run Administration. He behaves with dignity and grace on every occasion. He’s been Presidential in the best possible way.”
For those of us who wish we could go back to those days, after 31 days of chaos and disruption, I am providing here a poem by my friend Peter Bonner, who sums up what I think a majority of the country feels today on President’s Day.
Our Last Good Man
Perhaps the drones trouble your rest,
Or the raging son of a Guantanamo father,
Or the Allepo mother who does not want to see tomorrow.
Perhaps
We don’t know this job and never will.
We only imagine:
Ends justifying means, means, means, means,
Arsenals of means,
Means that crowd out ends.
How do you still the hand that engages those means?
How do we honor what you chose not to do?
We can only imagine that groaning database.
You held this for us:
the not doing.
Of course, you did
hold our safety
hold our laws
hold our confidence
hold our health
pull us back from the precipice of financial disaster.
You taught us again to believe again,
or at least to see and smell the spark
smouldering in the ash heap of Clinton’s depredations
and Bush’s blase’ inattention to war crimes
and stealing from the poor. . .
That spark of doing, every day,
what might help, ease a burden, afflict the powerful,
comfort . . .
and with grace, humor, even play.
Distant, aloof, cerebral, cool, Spock
they called you.
Up against that I put . . .
playing ball
No one who shoots, drives, slams,
demands the rock
is distant;
always engaged, always smirking,
about to make you wish you’d practiced more.
They didn’t like it cause they couldn’t run with you.
Now the wilderness.
As one who speaks prophetically,
you know the wilderness creates discipline
through its scarcity,
forges sinew and muscle,
fosters focus and resolve for later.
We will need it.
Go rest,
then come back and
speak to what is best in us,
hold us to account.
In this wilderness
we need a sip
a crust, a light.
Farewell Barack
©Peter Bonner, 2017
Former President Barack Obama and his family depart the scene after the Inauguration Ceremonies, January 20, 2017.
