A Poem for the Election

NOV 6

The day after the election

my love and I went walking

in the federal marsh

which was teeming with ducks

of all tribes and ages making loud

agitation.  There were coots and great swans.

In the tall grass, two sandhill cranes

called like alien orators.

A kingfisher rattled in the river birch

above open water, where a grebe

cruised, eying the brown depths.

These are my constituents,

whose appetites are limited

by airspeed and instinct.

They are not, as Whitman noted,

whiney, or prone to pronouncements

about God’s will, or economics.

At the end of the road,

looking over the still reach

of cold water, we smiled

at the dark pyramid

of a beaver lodge.

An older civilization. Wiser, darker, and longer lasting.