This has the unglamorous title of:
To a Friend Concerning Our Government Support
for the Dictatorship in Chile.
But I want to emphasize to a friend,
that it's meant to be a poem of personal consolation to someone
who is continually ashamed of our government.
Useful on this election day, to remind yourself
you inhabit nothing so impersonal as a state.
That what you feel cut off from, are
only the few people in power and the many who freely chose them.
People like you, children of the new world.
Not cowed by tanks, rumbling over cobblestones.
Not followed by police, as they stroll,
chatting, to the polling place.
Useful today, when you're feeling powerless in a country
you can't believe you ever believed in.
To remember that few waiting in line
would be friendly to a government
unfriendly to its citizens
if they could climb a watchtower,
and see how the sky looks in a prison with no visiting days.
And what would it take for them to notice
our ships riding at anchor in those harbors,
but a willingness to distrust the leaders they're
waiting in line to elect again?
To distrust the charm of the homely polling place,
the school gym festooned for the fall dance,
the social hall of the church ready for the bake sale.
Gratitude is the way they prove to themselves
they're loving daughters and loyal sons.
And can't you say as you wait among them,
that you feel like a son as well if many countries
make you angry, but only one makes you poor and small?