Boarded windows, broken pledges…and hope

Stately Press Club, boarded windows,

Downtown storefronts cloaked in plywood,

The people’s house, choked in fencing.

Foreign hackers, anger flaring,

Vicious rhetoric,

Trust destroyed.

A fledgling republic struggling for freedom?

Alas no.

The United States of America.

Election day 2020.

What happened to our pledge?

One nation. Under God. Indivisible.

With liberty and justice for all.

I shudder with fear,

Weep with despair,

Search for hope.

Surely the “Grand Experiment” will survive.