Artwork © Eric N. Peterson

 

America 250

It took little more than a sesquicentennial of
British colonization
before the divers
Colonies of America–
representing half of Europe
and an unwilling Africa–
decided to break free
from the Crown.

The Revolution may not have been
televised,
but it was documented
by countless writers
in stolen moments
between the bloody, gory battles
mounted by
Freedom Fighters
and their Loyalist oppressors.

Lost in the hue and cry
of those souls who
created America
is the voice of
one Founding Father
(and its second President),
John Adams,

Who warned that a despot might yet win the Presidency
and seek to break
all the rules
by consolidating all power
unto himself.

And now, on the eve
of our
Semiquincentennial,

Behold our Behemoth,
Donald John Trump–
grandson of a German immigrant,
son of a Scottish immigrant mother–
who, were it not for the right of
Birthright Citizenship,
might not have been eligible to run for, much less win,

the highest Office in the Land

or to grind our nation
into sand.

 

Jackie Oldham is a poet, essayist, storyteller, photographer of clouds, trees, and birds, and a (mostly retired) musician who sings and plays piano, recorder, flute, guitar, and pipe organ. Fiercely proud of her hometown, the hardscrabble, widely maligned Incorporated City of Baltimore, Maryland, she writes about her family and upbringing, and her identity as a Black woman who for 40 years has made having bipolar disorder work in her favor. She writes about anything and everything she cares about: politics, nature, the nature and art of writing, the vagaries of aging, and wrestling with Life and Death.

Eric N. Peterson is from Atlanta, Ga. He’s been drawing cartoons all his life. He leans towards the absurd, imaginative, and the surreal, as that’s where all the flavor is.