{"id":55,"date":"2013-07-04T10:04:06","date_gmt":"2013-07-04T17:04:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.freemanng.net\/blog\/?p=55"},"modified":"2013-07-04T10:04:06","modified_gmt":"2013-07-04T17:04:06","slug":"jefferson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.authorfreeman.com\/blog\/jefferson\/","title":{"rendered":"Jefferson"},"content":{"rendered":"

A poem for the 4th. (The day Thomas Jefferson died, in 1826, on the 50th birthday of the nation.)
\n
\nJefferson<\/strong><\/p>\n

He returned, whose name never was attached
\nto any legend of the great leader not dead
\nbut clenched still in some time defying
\ndream of his people, some Blessed Isle, some
\nsloping underground kingdom: his<\/em> people
\ntoo young perhaps or plain-minded, or unable
\nto imagine ever coming to a last
\ngreatest need. Came to where I camped
\nin a cleft of the thrusting Rockies he can\u2019t
\nhave known the like of, walking simply
\ninto the clear, not a lost traveler, not
\na messenger, just another hiker, in his linen
\nsilver-buttoned waistcoat, heavy breeches,
\nsturdy laced boots: good enough wear
\nfor a walk in the country, but without
\nan overcoat or pack. Sitting, at my gesture,
\nby the fire with a grunt of content. Asking
\nhow stood the Republic.<\/p>\n

                                                  I began
\nwith the corporations and the mass
\nof hoarded wealth so concentrated as to warp
\nthe geometries of our shared plane, but he
\nwas not surprised. Joint stock companies, charters
\ngranted willy nilly; he should have warned
\nwith greater vehemence. I pressed him
\nwith images of child labor, sweatshop workforces
\nlike the populations of entire colonial towns,
\nbut he saw only the germ of enlightened
\ndemocratic Revolution in the service
\nof such a weight of self interest. I told
\nthe rise of the Vote and the Union, and their
\ndecline into present irrelevance. He uttered
\nejaculations \u2014 no other word than the one
\nhe would have used \u2013 of astonished praise
\nat the former, and for the latter, dispensed
\nencouragement. What once was built, he said,
\ncould be repaired or reconstructed. (Mind
\nof the eighteenth century inventor.)<\/p>\n

                                                            I turned
\nto terror, our incessant infamies, and then
\nhe did blanch (only, perhaps, in aristocratic
\ndelicacy) at the rapes and killings, the burnings
\nof whole cities in a night. Yet, he knew
\nof cruelties, too, private, familial: he could
\nextrapolate and so continue nodding
\nin understanding, nothing yet that might
\ndeter his foolish optimism. I tried
\nonce more: crime and the prisons, which led
\ninevitably to poverty and race, and there
\nhe became so still and silent, fading
\nfrom sight in the sudden dusk, it seemed
\ntime had caught his fugitive soul at last,
\npulling him back into the grave
\nof his completed life. But he remained,
\npalpable enough to sample the food I offered,
\nno longer cheerful, no longer fatherly, but
\ngentle still. The star field he might at last
\nhave found familiar deepened into brilliance.
\nWe crumbled a cigarette into his pipe. The fire
\nflicked light across our faces, bestowing
\nan almost imperceptible boon of warmth.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A poem for the 4th. (The day Thomas Jefferson died, in 1826, on the 50th birthday of the nation.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-55","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-my-writing"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.authorfreeman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.authorfreeman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.authorfreeman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.authorfreeman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.authorfreeman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.authorfreeman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.authorfreeman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.authorfreeman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.authorfreeman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}