Classic Poem

It was on TV. The whole country
saw it, or could have, that brief
flutter at the Hearings — the matter
mentioned, then smothered. . . . I thought
of Jefferson's " ... firebell in the night. . . . "

Here was more than the bell: the fire
itself — muffled out on the podium
with exemplary dispatch, yes;
but the blur and the sting of it over
everybody in America since
like a weather-inversion. Fathers,
I had not thought, even at worst,
we had come to this. Abe Lincoln,
as sworn, stood to the text
through five years of civil war. Who
are these men who can't hold it
against a parade of placards? Fathers,
as you live in it, this charter
should have dripped blood and tears
down the wall where those legacides,
to-a-man sworn to protect it,
covertly then — and covertly still,
undeterred by the chance exposure —
plot to suspend it. Suspend it!
On what authority? What man
or what men, in what numbers
or in what combination of powers
granted under it? On whom
will a grateful nation heap honors
for propping it up again
like death-in-life, like a scarecrow,
a Halloween effigy, once
this thing's done: the great words,
the great breath " suspended " ? Fathers,
let us call a garotte a garotte
and the curse of the world on it.