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Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth upon
this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated
to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are
engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or
any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We
are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate
a portion of that field as a final resting-place for those who
here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether
fitting and proper that we should do this. But in a larger sense
we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this
ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have
consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The
world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here;
but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us, the
living, rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which
they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather
for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before
us, that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to
that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion;
that 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,
and for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
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The wind swept the sea asunder.
I needed hope.
Lashed, then torn away, our corroded plaque.
Does it still, in that deep water, cry out our vows?
The icy rain beat atop the roof.
The high, roaring waves flung our wooden home,
and everything splintered apart.
I came apart.
I needed strength.
The light was gone.
I could not see a thing.
I was frantic.
Your hand was in mine,
then it was gone,
and you were pulled from me and drowned.
Can you now, in that deep water, ever have thoughts of me?
For I have been condemned with thoughts;
of each hot and hard breath that we shared together,
of the ever-burning fire that we bore,
of our scarred, careening hearts,
of the vacant cavern that I have been left with,
of the vacant bed that I have been left with.
Drifting alone over the waves,
I needed help.
For I had lost the right to the rare, lost land.
I tore free all scorn
and attached the rights to a scarred stranger.
She came.
And she parted the roaring water
and carried me to the land,
soft barren land.
Grateful, I gave her all that I might've given you.
And despite the fact that she too tried and tried,
she could not stop the rain.
For the rain to stop,
I needed to believe;
to believe in life,
or to believe that all good hearts will care again,
or that I too can follow that sacred vow,
or that I too can cope.
When I took her soothing contact,
I believed.
End of the storm.
I now walk the devastated beach.
Fallen gull, unseeing eye cast to the sky,
reminds me of
the condition of our love.
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