2020 Walk to Salt Water - Bill Greenwood

[Larry Robinson]

2020 Walk to Salt Water

	When they go low, we go high. Michele Obama
How low can you go? Chubby Checker

I.
A spring-loaded clip 
unchains the first gate. 
Our path heads for 
a grey volcanic outcrop,
reminder that this bay 
marks the fault line 
at our country’s edge.

What relief to leave behind 
the morning paper stories 
of this small “p” president. 
Of how he’s sending troops.
More troops to guard against 
assemblies of his citizens
petitioning their government. 

No, this afternoon we navigate
the gopher-riddled pasture ground 
among pot-bellied angus, huge 
quadrupeds that prance away 
from us on tiny hooves.
II.
We come to the second gate 
encrusted on both sides 
by poison oak a well-oiled
green the red is overtaking.
My hand threads around 
the post, unhooks the snap
and the gate swings wide. 
Buttercups are humming
gold, color of truth.

Unwittingly the mind snags 
on the contrast with this 
very small “p” president;
he who made the Limbo 
the Official White House 
Dance by simply standing 
there in place and speaking;
he who fabricates alternate facts
repronounced by the invertebrate 
and/or blind loyalists he dupes
with nanoscopic honesty;
he who does- or can-
not read and yet rewrote the book 
on lies told while in office.
III.
The third gate clip missing 
its spring wants fiddling with.
We take note of and sidestep 
bobcat or mountain lion scat 
and hew to the trail’s contour 
along the landscape slope. 
A light wind carries my attention
across the field to purple asters, 
yes, color of kings and queens. 

What grand irony how this 
smallest of all possible “p’s” 
president tells the world over
and over that he’s the greatest 
creature in the sea of life
when   he   is   but   blubber.

Nevertheless, this year again 
he’s poisoning the well,
ranting how his opposition 
schemes to cheat him out
of his imagined reelection.
Thus he delegitimizes ballots 
that could well be delivered 
by the US Postal Service 
which he works to unravel
and thereby steal the vote.
IV.
The early fog is lifting 
off  the ridge―sky blue 
infinity comes into focus.
We look upon salt water
although I refuse to weep.
Today’s gift of clarity moves me 
to ask, with all humility,
O Lord, if one there be: 

Grant that this imposter fin-al-ly 
be made to go stand someplace else, 
anyplace besides the office he holds 
down with bogus bone-spurred feet;
Grant that every single eligible 
person registers to vote;
and when the time does come
Grant that they do.

	- Bill Greenwood
 	
								
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