January 2025
The flag whips, snaps, folds and unfurls
in the winter wind, bitter now. The bells
peal from the campus chapel, marking
time, this time, our time, all time.
The red, the white, the blue are welcome
color here against the seasonal gray of
clouds, old snow on ground, stone church
The flag flies half way up a tapering pole
commemorating not this inauguration
but death: a good man, shootings, fires.
Isn’t it right to grieve the passing of integrity
the preventable carnage, the crackle of
earth keening?
But isn’t it also right to feel
the snap of resilience, to unfurl, stretch out
to full length for a future, to imagine hands
that will pull with all their strength on the halyard
to raise us as high as rope, pole, the times will allow?
Look up, join that eagle perched on top, gaze far
find your talons, clutch that ball, remember gold