THE POETRY OF IMPEACHMENT

February 16, 1999
		Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky reflects on what imprint the impeachment trial of the president will leave behind.

Full coverage of the impeachment trial: analysis and trial documents. Browse other poems read by the Poet Laureate.

This week, we face speculation about how President Clinton will be remembered, how the members of the House and Senate took part in the recent impeachment proceedings will be remembered, what we as a people will leave behind from this passage. Such speculation may be futile; what will be recalled and what will vanish like a dent in dough? Who knows? In this passage from my poem "An Explanantion of America," I try to think about this question of what we leave behind by considering two epitaphs: the words over the grave of Thomas Jefferson, and those over the grave of a freed slave: Jefferson in his epitaph records That he was author of the Declaration Of Independence, and of the Virginia law Providing public education; and founder Of that state's University--omitting His "high office" as it were a bound, Or something held, not something he had done- The ceremonial garment had been given By others, with a certain solemn function And honor; eventually, to be removed. In the familiar boast or accusation Americans have scant "historic sense," Nostalgia and Progress seem to be our frail National gestures against the enveloping, Suffusive nightmare of time--which swallows first The unaware, because they are at least free... But time's nightmare, and freedom from it, differ For different peoples: like their burial customs; And what they chose to say in what they leave. To speak words few enough to fit a stone, And frame them as if speaking from the past Into the void or mystery of the future, Demands that we be naked, free, and final:      God wills us free, man wills us slaves      I will as God wills God will be done.         Here lies the body of          JOHN JACK      A native of Africa who died      MARCH 1773 aged about 60 years      Tho' born in a land of slavery.      He was born free, Tho' he lived in a land of liberty,      He lived a slave,      Till by his honest, thos' stolen labors,      He acquired the source of slavery,      Which gave him his freedom,      Thos' not long before      Death the Grand Tyrant      Gave him his final emancipation,      And set him on a footing with kings.      Tho' a slave to vice,      He practiced those virtues      Without which kings are but slaves.