POEM: Looking for the Republic
By Michael Lind August 31st, 2021, 18:30 EDT
Editor’s note: We’re proud to be featuring Michael Lind’s work at Liberty Island. This is the sixth of eight poems.
Looking for the republic?
It’s never where you would expect it,
in lawns that are striped by the shadows
of statues, or whispering hallways.
In the poise of secretaries
and solemnities of store-clerks
you see it at times, the republic,
but then there is only boredom
and the stress of a day and suspicion.
A rustle, a stirring, a flicker,
it’s always almost in your vision,
the always almost a republic.
***
Photo by Thomas_H_foto 
About the Author
Michael Lind
Michael Lind is the author of more than a dozen books of nonfiction, fiction and poetry, including The New Class War and Land of Promise: An Economic History of the United States. His narrative poem The Alamo was named one of the best books of the year in 1997 by the Los Angeles Times Book Review and Bluebonnet Girl, his children’s book in verse illustrated by Kate Kiesler, won an Oppenheim Toy Portfolio prize. He has been an editor or staff writer at The New Yorker, Harper’s Magazine, The New Republic and The National Interest and is a columnist for Tablet and Project Syndicate and a fellow at New America, a nonpartisan think tank he co-founded in 1999. A fifth generation native of Austin, Texas, Lind has taught at Harvard and Johns Hopkins and is a professor at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin.
Comments
Leave a Reply