Is it Over?

I missed the Gettysburg Address,

didn’t know the war was over,

the blood of Antietam still slick

on the face of the land. Dismembered

limbs littering Maryland and Virginia,

Atlanta in ashes and Henry Clay

deader than Achilles when that other city

burned. The Emancipation

Proclamation will be enforced,

eventually in Texas. Mississippi

and Kentucky

will eventually ratify the 13th

Juneteenth of July

forth marches Reconstruction.

The Underground Railroad

still needs depots, and Nebraska

is Springsteen’s best album.

I shall never finish gathering

lilacs from the dooryard

lavender for the landfill.

Finding your constitution

took an act of Congress;

ratifying amendments

exhausting us, finally standing

in the torch of

The Statue of Liberty

after the Lusitania sank like Dena,

Charlotte betraying herself,

The Hague a fable,

and still, we savor the freedom

of the open road

Geneva and Versailles

from sea to rising sea.

Berlin wall falling.

You’re still handsome

in your uniform.