For JR
One can leap from a pulpit in a suit of feathers
or march on Washington. Only a maniac gives his life
without dying if you count each war stopped,
all the years of perseverating you didn’t believe in it
like UFOs or ghosts.
You had to love the corny
togetherness of barbershop quartets
more than Jesus did
to take on everyone, a one-way mission
to old age where you forget the Alamo,
not just saying it, and no one bothers you
and you don’t bother them, drifting off watching the news,
the world still bodies are to fields what nails are to hands.
If you snore instead of coo
breathing still offers a basic sermon
on flags folded into triangles
and you always were less a bird than an ass
like the one Christ rode,
or just a weed blooming at Gethsemane,
nothing to show for sticking it out
but a little peace found, found again.