Fall/Winter 2016



Dorothy Alexander

MESSAGE TO THE FIRST WOMAN PRESIDENT

Consider These Things, Madam President:

First, the words of Abigail Adams,
“Remember all men would be tyrants if they could.”

Next, I would remind you that
Flying is a proper state for eagles,
for doves, for scissor tailed flycatchers,
for women and all their children.

We have been waiting for a day with the right wind,
a kite-flying day, a day when aspirations soar
like great birds over the plains of our making.

We have been waiting for hundreds of years,
waiting since the sailing ships landed on a cold
rocky shore, since Elizabeth Cady Stanton raised
her gavel at Seneca Falls, since Amelia Elizabeth
Simison McColgin carried her new-born babe
through the cigar smoke and took her seat in the Oklahoma
statehouse. She was a midwife . . . of all true things.

The wind has been stilled in the halls of government
in this state and in this nation for too long.
Too many women are imprisoned,
too many children are sick, there is too little medicine,
too little health care for the ill, the lame,
the unfortunate, the poor.

There is too much power in the hands of tyrants.
Too many lies. Remember: Truth promotes the welfare,
health and safety of the people.

And, finally, rocks roll down hill, but must be pushed up
again & again. Sisyphus learned this. So shall you.
Do not succumb to weariness
There is much joy in tenacity.
One must imagine Sisyphus a happy man
(or so it is written).

 


Dorothy Alexander – poet, memoirist, attorney, jurist and independent press publisher– has authored five books of poetry and memoir, and edited three anthologies of rural Oklahoma folk history. She reads her work throughout the Southwest.

 


 

Poetrybay seeks fine poetry, reviews, commentary and essays without restriction in form or content, and reserves first electronic copyright to all work published. All rights to published work revert to the author following publication. All Email submissions should be in body of email text.

To submit poems write to:

PO Box 114 
Northport NY 11768
or email us at 
info@poetrybay.com

send comments to info@poetrybay.com

first electronic copyright 2004 poetrybay. 
all rights revert to authors

website comments to dpb@islandguide.com