Sentencing
I stand outside
because I cannot go inside.
My mum has run out of love to give me.
If I desire so much to be purple
I could as well plant my own flowers.
Look at me outshining my country:
I didn’t kill a moth because it startled me.
I took it to a city of flowers,
wished upon its wings,
set them up against the wind,
from where my answers would soon come.
Before a begrudged audience,
I admitted am not a good man. I am selfish.
I have my father’s dentition, his regalia of shame.
Neither cheesing nor sadness can save me.
I smile, & the people who love me
are disappointed. How is it a dead man,
instead of laying still in his sleep, still
chooses to haunt us with his mistake?
They look at me, & it is not them who hurt.
It is the vase I filled with my love, hoping it
was everything my hibiscus needed to thrive.
I did not start a war I knew would be lost.
I took my kitten to the vet, read it the 1st Amendment.
I did not send a man to the moon to masturbate.
Bet, I dug my father out of his grave to mock him.
I did not evade tax.
I drank with a politician.
I poisoned myself to get rid of my father.
I am not a good man.
I’d sell my country for crumbs
if I ever had to protest for anything.
I am not a good man.
I sent a man to the moon in prose,
denied him in poetry. If I sent my father
flowers right in time for father’s day,
would they grow to obscure his memory of me,
or would their fragrance extinguish what is dead,
& set me free? I am a good man.
I made a man die for me, on the moon.
We cannot back down
We now confront a second Trump presidency.
There’s not a moment to lose. We must harness our fears, our grief, and yes, our anger, to resist the dangerous policies Donald Trump will unleash on our country. We rededicate ourselves to our role as journalists and writers of principle and conscience.
Today, we also steel ourselves for the fight ahead. It will demand a fearless spirit, an informed mind, wise analysis, and humane resistance. We face the enactment of Project 2025, a far-right supreme court, political authoritarianism, increasing inequality and record homelessness, a looming climate crisis, and conflicts abroad. The Nation will expose and propose, nurture investigative reporting, and stand together as a community to keep hope and possibility alive. The Nation’s work will continue—as it has in good and not-so-good times—to develop alternative ideas and visions, to deepen our mission of truth-telling and deep reporting, and to further solidarity in a nation divided.
Armed with a remarkable 160 years of bold, independent journalism, our mandate today remains the same as when abolitionists first founded The Nation—to uphold the principles of democracy and freedom, serve as a beacon through the darkest days of resistance, and to envision and struggle for a brighter future.
The day is dark, the forces arrayed are tenacious, but as the late Nation editorial board member Toni Morrison wrote “No! This is precisely the time when artists go to work. There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal.”
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Onwards,
Katrina vanden Heuvel
Editorial Director and Publisher, The Nation
