Drowning

II.

As a historical figure,
it strikes me that
JFK isn't getting his due.

Lincoln's logical successor,
he had a few years to work
on important issues, and
as a man in pivotal times,
he set a bar no one has
approached since.

The 60s, even if he lived
only for three of them,
were still defined by
JFK's work. He was
influential in getting
civil rights codified
for black Americans, one
of several important men
in a time when the nation
became keenly aware of itself,
in the one issue that
united everyone, and
eventually on his side.

As a politician, he achieved
more than anyone else,
with the greatest display
of statesmanship before
or since, at the coldest point
in the Cold War, the Cuban
Missile Crisis; who knows
where he would have ended
up in Vietnam, which started
before him, and ended with
the man he defeated for
the presidency?

He was a troubled man,
and a wounded man, much
like FDR before him,
but he did more than
build toward some
fabled New Frontier
from a storied Camelot,
he spent all his energies,
and for his reward did not
live to see accompished
what he set in motion,
even though his dream
for the moon came so quickly.

Without him, everything
seemed to come apart;
a country set about a road
to disunion, let us say now,
which must be the true fight
today; the space program
is no longer so glamourous,
without real support; true,
a black man sits in the
White House now, but like
all great men, it's
not for the reasons you think.

JFK choked on his own success,
drowned in the sea of turmoil
he strove to calm, and for that
he deserves to be held
in an eternity of respect
and admiration.