At the LBJ

Milton Jordan

March 24, 2024

And so it was that later

as the miller told his tale,

that her face at first just ghostly

turned a whiter shade of pale.  

                                   Procol Harum, 1967

The Presidential Library, impressive

first viewed across the lawn from the walkway

passing the School of Public Affairs,

opens on a broad ramp stair rising above 

a security station where we noticed

that melody cracking into our memory 

of burning buildings and street struggles.

We might research the archives that detail

those years, shelves of books and monographs,

with careful accounts explaining events,

scan moving images of our own protests,

to learn the facts of dates and places

but we know that age in those lyrics

and the haunting melody of their tune.

Milton Jordan lives with Anne in Georgetown, Texas. He co-edited the first Texas Poetry Assignment anthology, Lone Star Poetry, Kallisto Gaia Press, 2022.