This poem was written in 2004.
As many of you already know, Election Day in the US is held on a Tuesday.
Roughly half the people, by the time they wake up on Wednesday, are disappointed at the result. In 2004, I was one of those.
The election followed a series of deaths in our sphere of family, friends and acquaintances, and it felt like just one more wake to go to.
In hindsight, it doesn’t seem so bad, but I hope that this coming election, I will not feel the same. Thanks for coming by to read.}
It has been a week of wakes.
The first, a churlish uncle,
White-maned and witty
To the point of impropriety.
Our generation gathered,
Sprinkled with a few grey hairs,
Looking no more fit nor inspired
Than our elders had, twenty years ago.
And they, whose strong shoulders we had leaned on,
Now, were stooped and slow to move, or absent.
The next, a workday surprise,
A Germanic diagnosis
One can barely get one’s tongue around:
Better to say “mad cow,”
But that is enough to start insistent whispering,
Enough to make one pat one’s stomach
In horror of the burger just eaten.
And last, no less absurd
And unthinkable: a death of a different kind.
A private death, mourned by a few.
The rest insist it’s not Death, but Resurrection.
How shall we dress for this wake? In black?
Even while the others parade
In red, white and blue?
Copyright 2017 Andrea W. LeDew
For more in the pre-election 2020 series, see Sixty Days. For more poems reacting to loss, see mourning.
I barely remember 2004. It seems like a lifetime ago.
A different era to be sure.