Classic Poem

Yr. proposed Constitution
for a United States of America,
due in part to my own dereliction
and in part to known laws of chronology,
arrives on my desk two centuries
later than post-date, already
ratified, in force, and amended
twenty-six times. Though no longer
of legal relevance, some response
seems appropriate, to this lens
through which the Enlightenment—or,
as we style it, the age of reason—
transmits itself into the future;
in particular as that future,
to you an impenetrable vortex
of vapors and shadows, to us
is already time-past, a trans-
fixed and immutable tableau
(so to speak) of marbles and bronzes
without breath or motion. However,
I shall pass over these, the Dates
in Latin, the Monuments. (You will receive
under separate cover a compendium
of the History of the United States—glossary
included.) My modest hope is,
in the light of these Articles,
to present certain notes, reflections
of a private citizen in the year A.D.
nineteen hundred and eighty-eight
(well assured that one need not scruple
to impose on your time who either
have none at all or the whole of eternity).











By permission of the author.