POEM FOR 34

ike
you wise and righteous old thumb
how we miss the likes o' you
and your flag so bright against that blue frontier
and your nation of heroes
with her common man rising like a silver god
and the world awed at the might
of this christ among nations,
born of rebels
and rightly righteous
and her people free
and happy
and all of it true
and yet not true
for even as we stood golden on that hill
black bodies swung from southern oaks
and natives dwelled in deprivation
and gays hid lest they be shamed
and beaten
and cast into prison
and women lived under the thumbs of men
and mighty as we might have been
we were only inching toward the promise of america