The Age of Theory

When I think Of nursing homes During the pandemic, Which seemed to transform Into ever more certain Incubators of death, Toward which we seemed To resign ourselves, Taking no measures Except ceasing That last mercy, The last manifestation  Of hope, The act of visitation, I think of my mother. Six years ago today, And as I write these words I wonder what she was Experiencing  Even during these moments. She was dying. I was working My last night shift  At the second of three Locations For a company  Best known  For a rubber and leather boot, A curious creation Always in the middle Of one thing or another. And always, I find myself  In the middle Of that day. When my father and I  Arrived for the first Of our twice daily visits  We found her breathing Heavily, Shallow, Great sucking efforts, Loud, Discomfiting. They told us She was dying. They told us They didn’t know how long It would take. This was towards nine, About five hours From when I am...

You don’t need whips To be a despicable boss, Slavery doesn’t need chains To be reprehensible, You don’t need to forcibly import the labor To have a workforce that needs to be freed. It’s not good enough to say, “Well, no one else wants to do it.” If you create the conditions  Where that’s even possible, Intentionally or otherwise, Of course that’ll be the result. But you need voices Willing to point this out. The unspoken, The thing So easily taken for granted, Is wrong Regardless, And will always need Correcting. On this soil Or elsewhere, Dignity is a language That must always be  Defended.

I don’t know, I’ve never particularly  Had a problem Integrating the world. But that’s the problem That so often happens  For others, And I think It’s the biggest problem. It’s great to know How things are different  But to keep them Locked up in little boxes, Separate, Apart, Deliberately, Defiantly, Angrily, Defensively, As if something will be lost... And I get it, Sometimes  There have been efforts To lose identity  By force, To integrate By eliminating  A minority’s features, And that was always wrong. But it’s also wrong To repudiate The melting pot. It’s wrong To rob yourself Of the ability To embrace unfamiliar things Because you think  It might threaten  The integrity Of what you’ve got. But listen, You have no integrity If you fear such a world. You lose far more Than you retain If you hide from The possibilities. If all you experience  Is an echo chamber Then eventually  You go deaf. So this is a message For all my sisters and...

In such an age, Only a paradox Could explain it, Only the New Fade, Which is fast & slow, New & old, Smart & stupid, Left & right, Up & down, Meek & bold, All of that All at the same time, Like the Three Stooges Caught in the doorframe together All the time, The pace of change On fast-forward and reverse, Good & evil Caught up in a trap Together, And everyone labeling everything  To their convenience, The meaning the biggest loss In all of this, Meaning meaningless, Waiting for another day, Waiting for the barbarians, Maybe, I don’t know, The true history Caught up with silly & profane songs, The queen bee pulling faces Setting up the paces Going all the places We can see on a vista But won’t understand Until tomorrow, Much as we believe otherwise Today, An act of faith In a faithless age, The face of Ellah Blazing in a valley Of history, Of Value, Faith repurposed  As something older, Renamed, Made urgent, For the economics, To save time, In ca...

Maine’s politics Have certainly been interesting  The past few decades. We fielded One of the few Independent governors, And the man is a prince, But more interesting still Have been Snowe and Collins, Who so often reached across the aisle, But in more recent years Still victim To increasing partisan rancor. Snowe decided To walk away In disgust, And perhaps, after all, It was exactly the right call, For this is not an age That cares For integrity, And so didn’t deserve Such a dignified advocate, Much though she remains  Lamented.

For me  The biggest tragedy In recent American politics  Was the repudiation  Of the best candidate Anyone fielded In the past twenty years, A guy by the name Of Joe Lieberman. It was this rejection That put us On a path Of mounting rancor, The evaporation  Of bipartisanship, Which to either side Looks so good But does both, And everyone, Immeasurable harm.

The idea of The conspiracy theory That has failed To go away In sixty years, To contradict that Lee Harvey Oswald Assassinated JFK, Isn’t to say That there is Or ever will be Some truth Yet to be revealed But that it was  An unsatisfying conclusion For such a consequential life, A giant in his lifetime, Divisive  And yet charismatic, A lothario And yet committed to his country, Capable of great blunders  And yet gifted with incredible vision, Often imitated But never duplicated, An old story, A great one, Still the best one His party has yet produced, A shining beacon on a hill, A true profile in courage.