Poetry, Part Fifty-five

Until the Clinton Administration and now the Obama Administration, the Supreme Court was the only government entity where we might have a chance for finally achieving something approximating equal rights. But, unfortunately, with Bowers v. Hardwick in 1986, that case was judged improperly by the court. Fortunately, seventeen years later, that misguided ruling was overturned. Justice Powell, the deciding vote, later admitted that his decision to join with the majority had been wrong. He had not known that one of his own law clerks was gay when he believed that he didn't know anyone who was gay. This was probably the most significant situation where being out and open about one's orientation would have helped our collective lives.

Supreme Court

We should not shake too surely
the dust from our development,
but time is leaning around betrayed.

I remind of those delayed
who, withered by regression,
still vaguely cling
like vegetation when we rake.

The wronged do long endure
as a crop we have forsaken for now.
Should we not each reap
when we all grow together?

How scorned will our production be
next to others who have forseen
the seasons better than we did?

Denied to some to grow,
the soil erodes from us all.
Our future, paused as told,
will judge us as we judge.

---