Vox Populi
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Robert Cording: Pilgrims
After being gently scolded by my wife
for giving too much to too many
political candidates, and after admitting
the legitimacy of her claim—we’re retired,
we don’t have the money—
I realize I really am a sucker
for every email that says, BAD NEWS,
WE’RE FOLDING THE TENTS,
THE MONEY’S RUN OUT,
THE GRASSROOTS DRIED UP.
But I’m surprised and delighted
by what comes to mind: a girl
dancing topless on a table
at the West End bar
more than fifty years ago,
and Richie Havens singing Freedom,
Freedom, Freedom from a jukebox,
everyone clapping their hands.
I don’t remember what got her up there—
freedom? drunkenness?
the freedom of drunkenness?
My friends and I journeyed
every Saturday to the bar filled with
what we thought was the real thing:
students good enough to attend Columbia.
We went to a Jersey commuter college,
but we’d schooled ourselves on Marx, Marcuse,
Nietzsche, the Romantic poets.
There I am going on and on about Truth
and Beauty, and the Vale of Soul-Making,
comical in my seriousness.
Now my foolish older self looks back
at my foolish younger self, smiling
because freedom could be a girl
dancing without censure on a table,
but mostly sad that King’s arc
of the moral universe is still bending
slowly, but these days mostly in the wrong
direction, and bewildered
that I keep pushing the Donate button,
as if I was changing the course
of justice, but always with the vague sensation
of something large and important
moving further and further away
~~~~
Copyright 2025 Robert Cording
Robert Cording is professor emeritus at College of the Holy Cross where he taught for 38 years and served as the Barrett Chair of English and Creative Writing. After his retirement, he worked for five years as a poetry mentor in the Seattle Pacific University low residency MFA program. His many books include Heavy Grace (Alice James, 2022) and In the Unwalled City (Slant, 2022).
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Bob has always been a wise and insightful poet whom I admire deeply — grateful to be a pilgrim alongside him! Thanks for this terrific poem, which truly resonates.
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Thanks, Meg. I love Bob’s poems as well.
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This is a poem about being human – and therefore being exhilarating, naive, full of good will, and the hope to be contributing to something bigger than yourself. It’s also rather gorgeous and touches many familiar chords.
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Well-said, Rose Mary. I agree!
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“…comical in my seriousness” is one of those truths that can set you on your backside. Thankfully, I can laugh at myself.
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I have to laugh at myself sometimes.
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How beautifully this poem travels — what a clear, honest and humbly melancholy lines.
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‘How beautifully this poem travels’…. What a beautiful way to describe this poem. Thank you, Laure-Anne. >
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Because of his admirably humble and non-hustling approach to life and art, Bob may be flying under too many people’s radar. This guy is, simply, one of the best poets in what’s left of the USA. I urge you to pick up any one (or more) of his books ASAP. No one’s writing more moving poetry these days! Thanks, Mike, for featuring him here!
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I agree, Syd. Robert is one of the best we have.
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What kind of fool is the better kind of fool? The fool who danced on the rickety table top to win a ten dollar bet? The art of recklessness she demonstrated? Or those who took her along to inhabit their memories with the gestures she once gyrated?
How do we bend the boundaries towards justice, and not Putin’s glory? I would be a fool to think I knew the answer. But I join the search to find the right line. Cording’s poem helps me see how paths are made from a tabletop to the feral cries we now make to stop disaster. The poem, like its title Pilgrims, is challenging in its route to where Cording is going. But like King, we must find a way to help the phoenix out of the rubble.
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Beautifully put, Jim. Thank you.
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Ah Bob, the sadness—and the beauty—are palpable.
Happy to see you are still giving forth the poems!
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Oh, an appreciative sigh for this beautifully melancholy poem with Freedom in the midst of it. Thank you, Michael.
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Thanks, Luray. I love Robert’s poems.
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