Photo courtesy of Forbes
Jimmy Carter has died, after one hundred years,
after healing river blindness, ensuring fair elections,
negotiating the release of prisoners, calling out
tyranny, assuring that to love your neighbor
is the fundamental task of government, this
preacher and teacher who taught Sunday School,
who gave the sermon, who gathered the chairs,
who built houses, hundreds in various countries,
who made the United States recognize its colonial sins,
who gave the Panama Canal back to Panama,
who made friends with humans from everywhere,
who lived up to his formation as an engineer
of buildings, architect of humans, who saved lives,
inspired hope, who wrote There’s Always A Reckoning,
who signed that book of poems to this poet
when I gave him my own first reckoning, grateful
to have exchanged metaphors and ideas with
President Jimmy Carter, hero, example, beacon, friend.