President Trump,
shortly after his singularly smelly election,
declared emphatic comparisons with Elder Republican
Abraham Lincoln.

Early on,
he described Lincoln as his kindred political soul,
admired mentor,
and the former President he was destined to most resemble
in spirit and success;

Presumably not including assassination
causing an abrupt end to his second term in office,
won by a landslide–
even if mainly because the ancestors of many Trump loyalists
were not in a northern political position to vote that year.

More recently,
President Trump,
not one to drop names of people who don’t actually exist
outside his own narcissistic imagination,
relayed the uninvited twitter message,
People tell him,
apparently hoping for the privacy of anonymity,
that he is already the greatest Republican President
in US history,
including Abraham Lincoln,

Who would be so supportive of Trumpian caging of children,
supportive of DT’s mockery
of women,
of people with disabilities,
of those homeless,
of people poor,
criminalized
traumatized by violence…
The list goes on in a remarkably non-Lincolnesque
non-spiritual
unChristian
snarky kind of way.

I imagine the President has heard Lincoln’s observation about trust
so necessary for even a quasi-healthy democracy,

“You can fool all the people
some of the time,
and some of the people
all the time,
but you can’t fool all the people
all the time.”

President Trump isn’t known for being a reader
outside consuming twitter posts
and Fox non-news banners,
but it seems he might have heard,
possibly read,
this Lincoln proverb as a challenge,
or just went with optimizing the promise that he could fool some people
all the time–
good enough for government work.

President Trump made it clear,
even before his Inauguration Day,
that only those people who could appreciate the splendorous beauty
of his naked narcissistic garments and greed would:

1. get to heaven,
2. become TrumpMedia empowered
   to hate multiculturally resilient democratic constitutions
   and healthy co-governance systems.

Speaking of aphorisms,
this night of January 6th,
my ecosystemic soul bows to the post-full moonlight
remembering,
“It is always darkest just before dawn.”

I grab onto this hope,
but then realize
Whoever knows this to be true from experience
could only speak this with reassurance
after the first hint of emergent light to the East,
source of sacred light
and EarthlyPower.

Is this as dark as fragile democracy
and patriotic civility must fail
this self-governing experiment?

I can’t quite yet see an Eastern sky of fading stars
although I would love to be vision corrected,
perfected to see light and power
in this climatic polarized time
of win/lose ecopolitical rabidity,
eating our children’s future,
wasting their water
and formerly fertile soil,
and decimating shading fruitful trees.

I can imagine a darker hour.

I can imagine my children
speaking with their grandchildren
about now vanquished land and water mammals,
the improbable kangaroo
and porcupine
and skunk

About former forests of mature trees,
huge plants
strong rooted
and reaching up
and out
much taller than the tallest remaining human;
now aging memories of neighbors lost forever.

Earth’s elder democratic,
healthy,
polycultural,
living biosystems might well survive
our species,

The only one that appears motivated to elect leaders
invested in fooling all the people
all the time,
of ignoring the rights and pleasures,
truths and beauty
of all “lesser” species
and “weaker” people,
now reduced to natural commodities
throughout Earth’s darkest hours.