In My Moment With the Declaration

Poem by Thomas Harrison Humphreys

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In my moment with the Declaration,
as my turn comes to peer below the glass,
I ponder what first I see before me:
a fragile broadsheet of brittle paper
now dog-eared from the miles of traveled time.
I am sorrowful at her tired frailness,
but, awed by her novel notion boldly
shouted at an old world by one so new.
 
In my moment with the Declaration,
I then contemplate those bold men who dared,
those men who dared to die and to change ground.
I see them in a humble state house
debating until sundry minds are twined.
I see them, men of ideals and others
practical in their cool deliberations,
both great and flawed by the human blemish.