To a Friend on His Election to an Inner-City Board of Education

February 25, 2018

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is politics in honor of Presidents Day, which this year was celebrated on February 19^th.

Today’s poem is a political congratulations poem for someone just elected to an inner-city board of education.

I welcome comments on my poems at https://nicholasgordon.blogspot.com.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Congratulations on your victory

Over those who'd labor in your stead.

Now that you have won, the road ahead

Gives pause: for what good soul-elect can be

Respondent to such need? Or happily

Attendant on such pain? It's often said

That power corrupts, but your audacious tread

Unheard might leave its footprints on the sea.

Little can one do, yet much is asked

As life responds to policy unfazed,

Taking, just perhaps, a hopeful turn.

Intending good, one is widely tasked,

Open to rebuke, and rarely praised,

Needing faith to change, as one must learn,

Scenes on which all helpless long have gazed.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/congra.html. For more poems about politics, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/politicalpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Politics

February 19: President’s Day? Presidents’ Day? Or Presidents Day?

February 20: The Market Is a Merciless Beast

February 21: Fifty-Nine2

February 22: Need Is Not the Mother of Invention

February 23: Sixty-Seven

February 24: Thank God for Pendulums

February 25: To a Friend on His Election to an Inner-City Board of Education