Throne

By Christopher Bernard

“Queen Elizabeth II: Britain’s longest reigning monarch dies aged 96”

“World on brink of five ‘disastrous’ climate tipping points, study finds”

—Two headlines from September 8, 2022

The rock you rolled to the top of the tender hill, 
The ship you winged into the regal bay, 
The sun you alchemied in a whispering still,
The heel you drove into stone as into clay, 
The moon in your thimble, meteor in your dream, 
School round your dubious, bloody history 
Curling toward the sun, a scruffy team; 
A knight in darkness fighting faithfully 
The dragon wrapped inside his thrusting mind 
Alarmed, frightened, cunning, clever, strong. 
Out of nothing designed and yet designed 
To trap a cosmos in a wind of wrong 
On a day when fire eats his meat and bread, 
His future closes like a fist, and a queen is dead. 

_____

Christopher Bernard’s collection of poems, The Socialist’s Garden of Verses, won a PEN Oakland Josephine Miles Award for Literary Excellence and was named one of the “Top Indie Books of 2021” by Kirkus Reviews.