Séance Sonnet

2:53 P.M. EST, FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 7, 2008¹

. . .

Q: Have you spoke[n] to any living ex-presidents [since your election on Tuesday]?
A: In terms of speaking to former presidents, I have spoken to all of them that are living. Obviously, President Clinton. I didn't want to get into a Nancy Reagan thing about, you know, doing any séances.

*      *      *

7:54 A.M. EST, WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 21, 2009²


The circled summit, soothed by quiet's charm,
With touching hands on oakened table top,
Expelled of fears and fixed to do no harm,
Awaits the ghost. And then they hear a plop.
"What voice seek thou," the chief of all bespeaks,
"To speak thy peace and guide us on course true?"
A pregnant pause gives birth to phantom squeaks.
"Sev'n score and four years—now a darkly hue
Stands at this nation's governmental helm;
My soul wells tears. Remain steadfast through storm;
Let arrogance be banished from thy realm
and uncloaked windows always be the norm."
The spectral sounds send summit eyes around—
Whence comes this stately proclamation's voice?
From west wall's paintings lined with men renowned,
The pensive bearded one's the likely choice.³
    "The nether now reclaims my brief reprieve."
    And with a plop the ghost doth take its leave.



____________________
1. Lynn Sweet (Washington Bureau Chief for the Chicago Sun-Times) questions Barack Obama (President-elect of the United States) during Obama's first press conference after the 2008 election.
2. post-inauguration day, first staff meeting
3. Abraham Lincoln, George P.A. Healy, 1869: [image]