The Capitol
This morning, I will give the invocation for the Oregon House of Representatives. I love that. I am right up there with the lamenters about the lack of interest in poetry in this country. But one thing I can say about Americans is that we turn to poetry for the big occasions—weddings, funerals, inaugurations. That sense of occasion says to me that we do find solace and inspiration and common purpose in poetry, we just haven’t translated that very well to our quotidian lives. But I adore a good occasion, and I am delighted to get the chance to thank the women and men who are doing the people’s business, and on Mr. Lincoln’s birthday of all days! This is the poem I will read:
Logger’s Wife at Long Last Pledges Allegiance
It’s about time that I swear allegiance to this Republic
though I suppose those Washington counting men
have long counted me as one of their own. But I crossed
my fingers behind my back, mouthed the words,
sang Dixie under my breath. Now, there’s no hope in waiting,
and here I am shaky and tired. But that’s about right in this nation
where everybody looks rattled and shaken and tired. I understand
the shaken or shaky or shook up, but why for the love of God
and this good Declaration is everyone so tired?
Owl-eyed and slow-flanked and tired. It must be the lights,
day and night, the lights. Have you ever seen those space-shots
of earth? So bright. Even dark is light. But, I’d best raise my hand now
before the sun breaks its arc, before I break free, before I lose heart.
*
I pledge allegiance
supposing this nation needs the allegiance of shaky women, small owls, cracked leather, cracked feet, cracked minds, nurse logs and huckleberry not yet ripe, beak moss and cork boots, foxes long gone but whose spirits still nibble at fiddleheads, late-day fog, spike prongs and clear-cuts and redsides, loggers and wish-to-God-they-were-still-loggers, wild strawberry and wild mint, supposing this nation needs this sworn allegiance, supposing this nation needs allegiance at all
to the flag
they say there are two million stitches in a flag, must be twice that many
to keep that flag on the moon. Four million tiny stitches. All sewn by hand
of the United States of America
oh sing – this broken promise, this broken nation, this broken land – sing it back to whole
and to the Republic for which it stands
Mr. Lincoln tells it best:
It is for us the living rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work
. . .It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining . . .
we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave
the last full measure . . . . we here highly resolve that these dead
shall not have died in vain. . . that this nation under God
shall have a new birth of freedom . . and that government
of the people,
by the people,
for the people
shall not perish from the earth.
One Nation, Under God
Calapooya . Leeshtelosh. Chillychandize. Laptambif
Indivisible
Ikenick Creek to Clear Lake to the McKenzie River over Cougar Dam past Finn Rock and Nimrod to the confluence with the Willamette to the Main Stem picking up Clackamas and Tualatin flowing north over Willamette Falls past Willamette Baseline to the Columbia at Sauvie Island, Willamette on one side, Columbia on the other, wider and faster and through Astoria with its tall ships—Ocian in View! O! the Joy!—the dark and merciless Pacific.
With Liberty and Justice for all.