Is it Noonan or is it Not?
by Barry Friedman
"Who weeps for the children? Who weeps for me?
We both yearn, breathe, desire for more--to be touched, held, caressed. Alas, though, this president puts his index finger in our chests, our breasts, a thumb in our eyes, throws the coldest of water on our dreams and yearnings and wants and needs. I remember a man who didn’t, a man who lifted us up, grabbed us by the hand, let us feel his bicep, and carried us to—if not a promised land—but a better one. It was morning, there was a hill. (I am drunk right now; it's all I remember of it) His name, ah, his name. He needed more than one, that man with America coursing in his veins. “We are all God’s children,” he once told me late at night, over warm milk, while we waited for Nancy to put him to bed, “but we are not all America’s children.” I thought, “Hmmm, yes.”
Yes, the children hold hands in agony, staring blankly, wondering why they have come to this America, this America of this man who so many doubt, rather than an America that so many loved, an America of broad shoulders and calves and verve.
Oh, I how yearn for the verve.
The poor kids dance in my head, the little brown kids from the south. I would dance with all of them. And laugh. And we would be gay.
The America I remember was strong, but not cold.
This president is cold, but not strong.
This president plays chess; Reagan played checkers.
A child’s game
Perhaps that is why they weep.
It is why I do.