Statues in the Park
by: Billy Collins
I thought of you today
when I stopped before an equestrian statue
in the middle of a public square,
you who had once instructed me
in the code of these noble poses.
A horse rearing up with two legs raised,
you told me, means the rider had died in battle.
If only one leg was lifted,
the man had elsewhere succumbed to his wounds,
and if four legs were touching the ground,
as they were in this case--
bronze hooves affixed to a stone base--
it meant that the man on the horse,
this one staring intently
over the closed movie theater across the street,
had died of a cause other than war.
In the shadow of the statue,
I wondered about the others
who had simply walked through life
without a horse, a saddle, or a sword--
pedestrians who could no longer
place one foot in front of the other.
I pictured statues of the sickly
recumbent on their cold stone beds,
the suicides toeing the marble edge,
statues of accident victims covering their eyes,
the murdered covering their wounds,
the drowned silently treading the air.
And there was I,
up on a rosy-gray block of granite
near a cluster of shade trees in the local park,
my name and dates pressed into a plaque,
down on my knees, eyes lifted,
praying to the passing clouds,
forever begging for just one more day.
I've heard of the meanings behind these equestrian statues before, although I wasn't aware of all the nuances of the lifted legs. These symbolic meanings fascinate me. Now, I'm sure that, at some point, almost everyone was aware of these artistic codes. However, over time, these codes have been relegated to questions on Jeopardy! or a game of Trivial Pursuit.
Today the citizens of the United States commemorated Independence Day--the day (almost 250 years ago now) when the Declaration of Independence was signed and British rule in the American colonies came to an end. In honor of this moment in history, there were parades and community picnics and fireworks all across the nation. However, much of the original meaning of this day gets obscured by the trappings of these celebrations.
I'm just as guilty of the next person when it comes to taking my freedoms for granted. As I sit here typing this blog post, I'm not worried about getting thrown in jail for criticizing the President of the United States or the justices on the Supreme Court. There's this little thing called freedom of speech in the Constitution which guarantees me the right to express myself without fear of imprisonment or worse. I can bitch about politicians all I want without fear of retribution (at least in the near future).
I am not going to discuss recent Supreme Court rulings tonight. Suffice to say, I've lost faith in the High Court. Divisive politics and corruption have invaded every aspect of governance in the land. But, that's not what I'm writing about right now. I prefer to focus on the time I spent with my wife and kids this afternoon/evening. I barbecued hot dogs and bratwurst, cooked corn on the cob, and sliced up a watermelon. We played games and laughed quite a bit.
Now, who knows what Independence Day is going to look like next year. It all depends on the upcoming presidential election. My heart tells me that I will still be independent and free. My mind says I might be incarcerated in some gulag as a dissident poet/anarchist.
Tonight, however, I can still type things like "Fuck Donald Trump" and "Impeach Clarence Thomas" without fear that I will be spirited away in the middle of the night by gestapo agents. And I honor the sacrifices made by those who fought and sometimes died to insure my freedoms on this Independence Day.
Saint Marty is now going to comfort his puppy who's cowering in her cage because his neighbors are exercising their freedom to shoot off fireworks.
