"A Legacy"

This poem, "A Legacy," was written for and first read at the Rice County Votes No! Community Kick-off event on Monday, June 18. The event was organized to bring together local opponents of the proposed amendment to the Minnesota marriage amendment. The amendment was voted down on November 6, 2012.

A Legacy

To my sons

I’ve thought long and hard

about what I can leave you.

After all, my greatest treasures

are things I don’t possess:

the bur oak and the pasqueflower,

and the prairie grass rising

from fire each spring;

the bluebird

dissolving into flight;

the clouds

and the snow-pleated

winter fields;

and the river that runs through

the middle of this town,

that unites us more than it divides us.

On the night before I traveled to Athens,

I watched the sun

setting behind Manitou Heights

and believed that not even the Acropolis

could be so full of wonders.

I have loved this place like no other,

this place which has given us you.

You came from more than

one woman and one man—

You came from these people,

from these fast-changing skies,

these deep winters,

the rise of the land that seemed,

when I first came here from the east,

like a deep breath being held.

You came into a world

that was changed by your presence.

You have made the hardest times

lighter with the weight of your dreams.

You have lived in possibilities

I could never have imagined.

You have believed there can be

more love, more voices

singing the song of their inmost heart.

You have already given me the future.

So I stand here tonight

in faithfulness to that future,

and in faithfulness to the vows I made

when your mother and I came together

as two hearts, and love

was the highest law we followed.

I stand here tonight to say no

to any lesser law

that claims we are married

only because our bodies are different

and not by the grace of everything we share. 

Copyright © 2012 by Rob Hardy