Vox Populi
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Ann Fisher-Wirth: Two Inaugural Poems
Inauguration 2025
Before I lived in the South I had never
smelled road kill, that sweet sick
that climbs inside your nostrils
and colonizes your brain, so had never
thought about vultures. But today
when the triple-forked twigs
on the snow-covered sidewalk,
one facing north, one south,
turned out to be the legs, feet,
and claws of a vulture,
scaly remnants so neatly arrayed
they seemed a sacrifice, I prayed
that the great birds who circle above the trees,
rocking, riding the thermals,
the birds with tipped wings,
would gouge and cleanse, and hold open the door.
~~
January 2025
My daughter says, I’m going to take the kids
and walk on Stinson Beach
and not watch a single minute
of the inauguration. She says,
yet the world can be so beautiful.
I’m on the phone with her. I start to cry.
I know the moon in the trees
offers light as much as ever,
but all our prayers and affirmations
in this time when the heart shrivels
and the eyes go dry
come to seem commemoration
of the last few threads
of a tapestry earth once wove. We clutch
those final shreds of wonder,
but we have plundered
the shimmering tissue, life’s shining cloak,
with its beasts and leaves and magic.
~~~
Ann Fisher-Wirth’s books include The Bones of Winter Birds and Paradise is Jagged (Terrapin Press 2019, 2023). She teaches at the University of Mississippi.
Copyright 2025 Ann Fisher-Wirth
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“We clutch
those final shreds of wonder,
but we have plundered
the shimmering tissue, life’s shining cloak,
with its beasts and leaves and magic.”
Yes and 💔
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Thank you for posting these poems, they are so important. Right now with everything happening in Israel / Palestine, in the USA, and in so many other countries in our gorgeous, wounded world, we need all the light we can hold, and words reflecting how many of us are feeling, whether we live in the US or not, also feel like light we can reflect back to each other. I did not watch the inauguration, I hate vomiting, but I heard the Bishop’s words to him and was immeasurably moved. Words are powerful. We are word-weavers and light-weavers. Vox Populi makes a difference and Ann Fisher-Wirth makes a difference, we can connect with what you bring us, Michael, and connection is part of the medicine we all need. Thank you. Courage. ONWARD, as Laure-Anne Bosselaar says…
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Thank you, Noelle!
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Thank you, Mike, for posting these poems by Ann. I needed both of them.
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Thanks, Andrea. It’s nice to hear from you again. Yes, these poems capture my mood this dark week.
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To me, he’s done his worst by pardoning all those violent felons. Although there are further horrors to come, from my perspective it’s all downhill from here. Hang on, dear friends. As the above so succinctly reminds us, the light can never be corrupted.
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I have a feeling that he’ll be doing even more horrible things before he’s finished with us.
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Yes, it is sometimes hard to believe that “the moon in the trees
offers light as much as ever”. We here in Peru are, for the moment, not directly affected. But my children and grandchildren in Europe will be. And I have days when hope leaves me. Two beautiful poems to lift the depression.
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Thanks, Rose Mary!
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These are times we need connection. Vox Populi reminds me that there still is thinking and feeling when I want to turn over and go to sleep, that bit of courage to take Tashi for a walk.
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Courage, dear friend. Courage.
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Two brilliant takes on keeping sane in our new Gulch of America. Yes, some of us will have to take up the role of vulture: picking clean the carnage, while others keep tending wonder. Keep alive love and beauty, hope and resolve, instead of becoming the sweet sick roadkill…
Maybe someday the wall of presidential portraits will contain a gap?
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We all have our work to do. With the political pieces on Vox Populi, I don’t plan to join the news cycle of DT saying outrageous things, then the news anchors breathlessly repeating them. Instead, I plan to focus on things we can do as citizens. Changing our diet and other consumption to be more planet-friendly; growing a garden; running for office or supporting local progressive candidates; bicycle and walk instead of driving; joining a union; treat each other with gentle respect… There are lots of things millions of citizens can do to counteract the poisonous influence of DT.
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yes to all you say. Keep up the re-postings. They are signposts for future counteractions against the poisoning. Thanks a million…And courage, dear sir.
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Likewise, Jim. Your posts here are important. I love reading them.
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