The Senator Series - Part Two

January 18^th, 2012

I Sit in Silence

Not of contemplation but of disbelief.

Like a fast train on uneven tracks I want

to roll around to grieve for the loss of you.

My life was one of tens

of thousands of generations

that breathed while you breathed.

Why couldn’t it have been one more?

Arriving home, at your feet

I would always humble myself.

To return to find you sitting—

my looking down—

will find me on my knees at your side,

an inequality I never wanted balanced;

A minute below your light-cleansing canopy

An inspiration tuning intuition.

Knowing you were there at the end of the trail

Tucked within palmetto and yellow poplar

I knew I was home,

Home as it has been for a thousand years

Where the noise of a day and a year are smoothed

To a long tranquility revealing that everything turns

Out all right in time, through changes and civilizations.

So others could sit you have stood for all time

Waiting for another to come to pass on

The unbroken line. Through hurricane winds,

Storms of sudden light and blasting noise,

Through greedy hands holding buckets for sap
And saws for woody flesh,

Wars shedding blood at your roots,

Through a hundred fires before, you

Persevered all to send our hearts to leap

At the sight of profound stature. Burning spontaneously

In a glorious blaze of indwelling you became the torch

For your Lady, a call to carry on in wisdom,

Honor and faithfulness.

Years ago, before I knew you

Your kind

Or the kind of anything

I planted a tree.

As I saved it from a potted, draughty death

Freeing his roots to a hole in the ground

And his dreams to the sky

I gave you a successor and prepared my heart

For your grace. The line is yet unbroken.