American Shrines

American Shrines

(on a visit to Walden Pond and Concord, Summer 2009)

the pond, dazzling
clear, lucid, potable
but holy water, too...

the North Bridge
shrine of defiant Minutemen
rain: massed volleys
Brown Bess Redcoats fire
lead balls from on high

better, dampened
by rainwater than blood
...as refreshing to patriots?
I wonder

we dried our socks
(if unlucky enough to have worn them)
on the bus, and rode
pleather saddles and a/c
to Walden

ahhhh...to bathe with Thoreau
in these mystic waters
I walked on, wishing
iconoclasm, splashing
but doing conformity
and dampness

our lives of quiet
desperation ring thund'rous
in iPod-budded
ears:
America!