ELECTION: One view in verse

Our president had gotten a little grey around the edges.

The enthusiasm of his fired-up-and-ready-to-go 2008 devotees ebbed.

He wasn’t the liberal they had come to expect.

They wondered if he forgot who brung him to the dance.

It took a Romney,

a man who likes to fire hardworking Americans,

enjoys folding up their workplaces and shipping them to China,

who has built his fortune by creating misfortune for others

who shared with his cronies his belief that 47% of his countrymen were slackers

who lied so much about what his polices were that PBO was struck speechless at their first debate,

it took a Mitt, such at that, to offer a stark comparison so that our flawed Mr. O

would look like a gem.

But, that wasn’t enough to gain victory.

It has been said that the sleeping voters were awoken by the sound of locking voting booths.

It was the ugliness of class and race warfare, the silly decision by some Republican officials

to make it harder to vote in certain states, in certain neighborhoods, that ultimately cost them victory.

They kicked a giant and the giant remembered the old fight for civil rights and said:

“Enough!”

They kicked the female, the brown-skinned, the elderly, the ill, the “others” among us and instead of discouraging them

it made them roar.

They stood in lines for up to 8 hours, brought their chairs, brought their sandwiches and waited out the challenge to their rightful place.

Big money backed so many candidates

poured so much money into buying the elections,

but last night the biggest money didn’t win.

Last night, in his acceptance speech,

Our President thanked us, everyone of us who took action, no matter what our political preference.

Once again, this man who has learned too well the need to turn the other cheek, reached out to us, told us how we lifted him up,

how we inspired him.

I see him, these four years after our initial infatuation. We are both more battered. We are both more tired. But hope, that hope that will not let go, once again won.

Bless President Barack Obama. Bless the UNITED States of America.

Amen.

JAN SARCHIO

Coeur d’Alene