No matter one’s political persuasion,
There is a simple question one should ask:
What can a poem bring to this occasion?
For here, the poet has a sacred task—
No less, than when you lay you down to bed,
At last, long hours hence, to get some rest,
Momentous words still ringing in your head,
With bleary eye and swollen breast,
From luminaries who’ve expended breath
Recounting our great wisdom and our strength,
With pride and better nature done to death
As speakers perorated on at length
In public celebration or in grief—
That you not blame the poet, who was brief.
Frank
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-- Frank
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