You're Terrific.

Conservative Andrew Sullivan on the current political imbroglio:

Coming from abroad, this country seems as if it is beyond dysfunctional. It looks like a banana republic on the verge of economic collapse. Now that Nixon’s dream has come true and the GOP is fundamentally the party of the Confederacy, it was perhaps naive to think they could ever accept the legitimacy of this president, or treat him with respect or act as adults in the governing process.

This morning, after three full days of rain,

            The clouds lift slowly from the fields

Like lovers taking leave. The level sun,

            Obscured by trailing mists and vapors,

Whitens our soaking world of windows, barns,

            And fence rails. Routines resume:

The neighbor’s dog uphaunches and ambles toward

            A water pail. Last night, we saw

The blood-stained scimitar unsheathed and felt

            The wind of angels rushing past,

While Heaven flashed and thundered its command.

            Yet God today has stayed his hand:

Each bud and backward-bending stem of grass;

            Each droplet blurred by insect spawn;

And, aloft, a banking sparrow hawk held like

            A shining cross against the sun,

Bespeak a love too eager to forgive

            The blasphemers who mock His word;

The decadent, depraved, and dissolute

            Who squander his Son’s sacrifice;

And those adulterers and sodomites

            Who do not speak the faith required

Each day to shame and mortify desire.

—Norman Williams, from One Unblinking Eye © 2003