Friday, January 20, 2017

Inauguration Day 2017

THE LINCOLN BIBLE (A Poem for Inauguration Day)
 by Name Withheld, only wishes to be known as "A Priest in God's Church"
 [shared with permission]


In the molecular space
 between his palm
 and Lincoln's own imprint
 on the worn burgundy
 of Holy Scripture
 there is a wall:
 built of the crumbling dust
 of liberty and equality;
 hardened bricks fashioned
 out of mud and straw
 men, scarecrows
 protecting a barren field;
 mortared by misogyny
 violence, racism,
 and the petty thirst
 for the power
 of a nation's original sins;
 painted in gold leaf,
 and hanging at the center,
 a love letter in Cyrillic
 and the portrait of a man
 named Dorian Gray.

In this whisper of space,
 between leathered skin and red velvet
 is the resistance of the holy
 where hope exists,
 thin and imaginary and growing.
 It is the place where,
 no matter how hard
 his palm presses on the sacred
 for power and glory
 It can never touch
 what is holy
 It can never silence
 the voice of God
 protesting
 with every
 holy
 breath.

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