day FORTY ONE

The Better Angels of Our Nature

The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice. Martin Luther King

I

She said she was disturbed

noises at Camp Peary

Black Ops exercises

in the tideland woods

explosions, machine gun fire

blackhawks beating moonlight

                      beating clouds

She tells me this over drinks

in a bar that’s gay one night a week

after we stopped at a candlelight protest

Maybe some of the same kids are here now

some are her students

most are not much older than we were

when we met, it seems like a long time now

We haven’t seen each other in years

catching up on careers, pets and miscellaneous debris

drunkenly talking out all the difficulties of family

The next day hung over, listless

sitting on the couch passing newspaper pages

she says I can play a record if I want

we both agree on silence

the world is dissonant enough

Lately real life resembles

all my five am anxiety dreams

the kind where I wake up

stare at the dark, wait for it to lift

the only thing pleasant

in those moments is silence

It’s so hard to find silence

even in the comfort of friends

even while waiting

on the better angels of our nature

II

Big Star’s Third plays crisp

clear on this ice sunshine morning

Obsessed with Take Care

I play it over and over

long past Richmond

when I switch to radio

I love radio

especially when I’m headed

into some large American city

the mess of cultures

spilling across am and fm dials

classic rock and mexicali polka

bollywood and gospel

rai and soul

hip hop and cumbia

classical and jazz

it bolsters me

    reminds me

what America is about

III

In a burger joint

my friends and I interrupted

Mark sweeps up weekends along 6^th

further up the street weekdays

He says straight away

Donnie don’t play that

we laugh, it sparks conversation

He doesn’t understand

he can’t accept

that it will be alright

but being black

you get used to be ignored

you get used to being harassed

you get used to being stepped on

its, excuse my language, he says

the fuckers who voted for him

that won’t understand

how to live

when shit

starts to roll downhill on them

IV

The Library of Congress

the sum of our national knowledge

ceiling painted with quotes

statements

on freedom

on knowledge

on equality

and against tyranny

everything we’ve come to believe

or be misled about democracy

is here on display

Everything that is knit

into our national fabric

is waiting

on the better

angels of our nature

to appear

to drink

to digest

to practice

not divest

V

I stroll down the bluff

around the Capitol

there are persons of color

humans

today, mostly Muslim

holding signs in protest

milling after the event

I try and read signs as they pass

sometimes so intent on words

it seems I’m staring

when I notice, I smile wide as I can

to acknowledge

you are not alone

often their eyes relived

smile back at me

We are all immigrants

my family came from

Scotland via Toronto

when potato famines raged

My family came from Germany

when Wilson claimed

all Germans were the enemy

when it was good for business

as it always is, to go to war

My family came from Switzerland

looking for opportunity

this is what our country

has been built on

since some rich white men

decided that freedom

was good for business

this cannot

and will not be changed

not in the name of safety

ultimately, safety is an illusion

if you ban

Iranians, Iraqis, Somalis

Syrians, Libyans, Sundanese and Yemeni

then I will be happy

to add those nationalities

to my family tree

VI

A Latina woman

in a wheelchair

pushed up the bluff

by her daughter

sign across her lap

Love Trumps Hate

The daughter struggles

extended behind the chair

the older woman

says something I can’t hear

they both laugh

a joke that meant everything

VII

Sunset at the Lincoln Memorial

wheelie kids flying across the mall

Muslims and sympathizers gather

for a candlelight vigil

I need no help with The Gettysburg Address

its burned in my heart

its his second inaugural address

that, this evening, hits hardest

I knew I wouldn’t hold back,

how can you hold back tears

when a national tragedy is happening

The blood still not been wrung from the lash

our sins indelible

it seems to me the Civil War

like the Cold War,

was a war of attrition

It seems to me

we lost both wars

but it took one hundred and fifty years

or thirty to realize it

I take heart as I see people

take to the streets en masse

I take heart

when I see civil disobedience

the protests peaceful and growing

Jeremiads to be rewritten

by the better angels of our nature

proof that government

of the people

by the people

for the people

shall not perish

VIII

The Vietnam Memorial

a wave in the dark

The wheelie kids are home

the Muslims on fire

the wind a bone saw

I have two uncles who served

neither killed in combat

one a casualty of alcohol

the toll quantified

years after he served two tours

the other still wears

shrapnel scars across his face

I am not a man who believes in violence

I wonder now about that more

as I have conversations

I see more people who feel the same way

as I watch a government unconcerned

with the people it was to serve

It seems to me LBJ

believed in guns and butter

but guns beat butter

now its only guns

Fifty years after the wave crested

fifty years from where King’s dream died

fifty years of an age of growing irrationalism

fifty years of violence, our national

jeremiad is still one of blood

we’ve been wading deeply

its stained every inch of this land

I stare through the dark

at lists of names

names of men

now gone

I am overwhelmed by the dead

IX

The fence is still up from inauguration day

it surrounds the White House

as do armed guards in digital camo

I was taught to believe

in god and country

in invisible hands and democracy

I have found no solace in god

choosing instead to believe in humanity

maybe, like Whitman, this is why

I can’t give up my faith

in democracy

X

There is a feast waiting

in a basement apartment on D Street

Beer we bought from a Korean Bodega

Chicken and Mole Sauce

Refried beans and rice

my host’s fiancés cooking is perfect

We talk about the places

our families came from

the stories we haven’t lost

to time or being Americanized

we list of all the terrible things

we’ve seen and heard

in the name of freedom

Freedom in our name

freedom cannot wait much longer

for the better angels of our nature

Coda

Arlington National Cemetery
I’ve walked fifteen miles in two days
maybe more, my legs are pegs
I sprained my ankle
coming down a mountain yesterday afternoon
I don’t have time for the tour
I decide to walk
to limp to Kennedy’s grave

I stare up a Robert E Lee’s big house
I hear they’re refurbishing the slave cabins
finally making it undeniable,
the unbelievable cruelty of that era
which isn’t that much different from this era

I watch the eternal flame a minute
listen to security guard hush
each person who speaks

I start back down the hill
my legs are not working
the limp gets worse with each step
still I start for Medgar Evers grave
I get halfway, feel like heading for the gate
stop, state at the seventy degree
blue sky in January

rebuke myself
some gave all for freedom
Evers gave his life for it
a freedom that all men should enjoy
a freedom that should be
self-evident

I keep walking, finding the grave easily
kneel and rest my head on it
no prayers

only silence

 ---  Jason Baldinger