Tuesday, November 19, 2013

Civil This Course

(NaNoWriMo quote: just the words "crisis" and "civil")

Scholars aren't sure Lincoln
despite his brief
unifying eloquence

connecting the sacrifices
of the dead
with the consciences
of the living

would approve of
Obama's presidency.

But they are fairly sure
that the Republicans
who undergird

their imagined
crisis-du-jour

with Lincoln's actual deeds
would be considered
unneeded hindrances
to civil governance

and perhaps
thought a fool by him
beyond all doubt.

This poem © 2013 Emily Cooper.