THE ATTENDING

Let us, in this time of bitterest lament,

Go awhile apart and meditate

And reverently attend the ancestral choir

Of prophets, sages, founders of the state,

Who lend us strength and solace when the world is rent

And everywhere besieged with fire.

Let us linger, as we may, within the grove

And hear those voices in the heat of day

Speak like gentle winds stirring the silence

Softly in their never-ceasing play

Of loving variations on the theme of love

And weary descant against violence.

For we are nothing without the ones who came before,

They who with palette, loom, and graceful pen

And sculpted stone, with treatise and debate

Built up our world and built it up again

When it was brought to rubble by incendiary war

And the towering, sword-blade flames of hate.

And let us join with them in spirit by going to

Their words and deeds that make our history

A matter of some pride, if we will know

The best of it, forgoing vanity

And boast and doing calmly what we ought to do,

As they did then, a world ago.

xxx

Fred Chappell was North Carolina’s Poet Laureate.  He is retired from UNC Greensboro, where he taught English, advanced composition, poetry and fiction.  His many writings include books of verse, stories, criticism, and novels.