Governing by Crisis

We must stop, he said,

Governing by crisis.

We must stop living from crunch time to crunch time,

Counting on the horrible to prompt compromise.

We must start being reasonable, he said,

Keeping in mind that we are the keepers of the republic.

Perhaps it did not occur to him

That the 1787 text itself was made in crisis,

That each election, each bill, each resolution

Each appointment, each impeachment,

Each hearing, each motion, each utterance

Has crisis at its heart.

Perhaps it did not occur to him

That each breath, each heartbeat, each thought

Is itself a crisis, standing, wavering

On the sill of the horrible, and

On the sill of the beautiful.

--October 16, 2013