How I resent the time apart
From things I’d rather do:
These public matters dull my heart,
And I’d rather eschew
Dwelling on these affairs at all
Which aren’t germane, or seminal
To how I’d rather spend my time,
Pursuing raptures more sublime.
Yet, as a citizen I pause
To give consideration
To whither fly the norms and laws
Of my unhappy nation:
Did not the African made slave
Prior considerations have?
Or the corralled and captured Jew
Have better things than World War II?
So that, when I resent the time
Given to public matters,
Yet I recall, in times of crime,
With public life in tatters,
As men march, kill, and legislate
To threaten and deliver hate
Against minorities—blacks and Jews—
There’s but one route I’m left to choose.