I have to ponder
Abraham Lincoln
I've seen his archaic face
so many times before
An icon of the Civil War
yet timeless in its definition of America

He poses, patient and wise
but more myth than man
The crags and valleys
of his complex face
forge out a map of my America

His rugged beard and stoic stance,
his jagged, rustic features bear out
the forests and the mountains
and the plains
A somber man
A sad man
A man with the weight of the world

I find a penny
I pick up a penny
and there he is
Abraham Lincoln
A shiny, new one
Its fiery, coppery red
sits a while and melts into my palm,
mingles with my imagination,
spreading illuminating embers like cherries,
like cherries in a tree with many branches.

President Lincoln
He set the captives free
His office, his aspirations cost him dearly,
cost him his life