Portside

When I Learned Joe Biden Defeated Donald Trump

By John Field

Imagine a morning when nature

In its purest form of play

And joy its only task

Lends us its book of wonders

With hundreds of uncut pages

Waiting to be filled in.

Instead of November marking time

Until winter arrives,

it’s spring again

Spilling its horn of plenty

Over blossoming meadows

So lovely

They make autumn look fretful

And unsure of itself.

Envision children erasing that flat,

Sandpapered look in their eyes

As they watch dust motes

Prance like acrobats

In shafts of sunlight overhead.

Then take off on a breeze

Like tiny incandescent students

At a flight school, the atmosphere

Above America clear again,

Picture-postcard-blue.

Perfumed by the heady incense

Of lilacs in bloom—and decorated

With a looping confetti of butterflies

Hovering around sunflowers

Humming

With a thousand punch-drunk bees.

Listen! Baby birds—throats tight

As tourniquets—chirp

For something to fall out of the sky

And land in their wide-open beaks,

Soon.

Like them I wait impatiently

For suchlike pleasures to arrive

The day the next president

Of the Divided States of America

Is finally sworn in—and a deep calm

Settles over Washington.

Justice served, democracy restored

And the white house

Blue once again.

 John Field lives with his wife Mary in Glen Ellen, California. He studied creative writing at the University of Iowa and received his M.Ed. degree in education from the University of Exeter in England. His poems have appeared in The Atlanta Journal, The Midwest Quarterly, Inkwell, Poet Talk and other publications.