CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTOR
Signs and Portents
(reprinted, with permission, from Everybody's News, Issue 542, February 5-11,
1999)
by Michael Blankenship
January 20, 1993, broke crisp and fairly clear, I recall. It had been less than a month since my partner Bill had died, so the idea of a new year, and starting over from scratch, and the calmness and deliberateness that accompanied each act of my daily life, were foremost in my mind. It was cold outside, and in my room as well, and I was dressed in a manner suiting my new status of widowhood: long johns, flannel nightshirt, thick woolen socks and slippers. Insulation from all was my overriding objective.
So, after making my oats with chopped apples, cinnamon, and honey, I went back upstairs with my hot breakfast and coffee, turned on the TV, settled into my rocker with an afghan over my lap, and watched history commence. This was Inauguration Day. Feeling as spunky as Cokie Roberts, and as weather-beaten as David Brinkley, I watched ABC's coverage of the event. Tapping my foot to the Marine Band playing beneath a gleaming Capitol dome, the west front festooned with flags, I felt a genuine warmth inside, and not just from my breakfast. A new year, a new period in my life, a new government, a new president. Many had not survived the twelve years of Reagan and Bush, including my partner, but I had. Bill and I were early-on supporters of Bill Clinton, mainly because he was the only candidate who seemed to understand and articulate the seriousness of the issues which directly concerned us. Bill had plastered stickers all over the place: "Election '92: Vote as if Your Life Depended On It!" For a great number of folks, it really did.
I guess the first indicator of what was to come was when the Marine Band began to play Sousa's "Liberty Bell," which is familiar to most of us as the theme from Monty Python's Flying Circus. "Was there a message here?" I wondered. But I enjoyed it, I was smiling. Cokie and David talked about the optimism that comes with the inaugural tradition; how everyone, regardless of party, wanted this presidency to be a success. I certainly wanted this president to succeed-he seemed too good to be true.
And then there was that hat! "Oh good God, Hillary, where did you get that horrid thing?" I muttered to the TV. Chelsea looked presentable, but was this what all of the secrecy concerning the first lady's outfit was about? They should have kept it a secret! No, no, no! The color was okay, but the shape! And the size! It was just outright stupid-looking! Why not something more angular, upright, kind of Nefertiti-like stylish? Definitely not a good sign! Now I was really concerned.
The looks on George and Barbara Bush's faces spoke volumes. You could tell George Bush wanted to be anywhere else but there, that he couldn't believe that having just won a war, he was being turned out by some '60s pot-smoker, draft-dodger, fast-talker, slick willy Bubba, and from Arkansas, of all places. And Barbara, well, she was still stuck on that hat. Barbara knew her blue was classy and tasteful, and at least her pearls matched her hair. But this? Neither of the Bush's seemed captivated by the optimism for success that Cokie and David had spoken of.
Now, there's not much time for things to go horribly wrong during the oath of office-the suspicion in the voice of Chief Justice William Rehnquist doesn't count for much, as he always speaks in a suspicious, wooden, hollow, curt and doubtful tone. Maya Angelou's poem was okay. It did have an optimistic tone, but it was also pretty convoluted, prefiguring some of the president's own policies, explanations and definitions.
Then, as the new president stepped up to the podium to make his inaugural address, the sun burst brilliantly through the high clouds and flooded the barren Capitol grounds, like Heaven itself was smiling upon his task! But as he launched into his speech, proclaiming "A New Covenant" with the American people, this favorable sign was shattered by a noisome squawking punctuating his words, a blatant heckling by a "murder" of crows perched in the naked trees nearby. "What were they saying?" I wondered. With each reassuring promise their din grew. They obviously didn't believe a word of this "Covenant," but no one seemed to take any heed of them. I, however, was stunned. I expected Cokie to have something to say about them, perhaps she had seen similar signs in all her days on Capitol Hill, but she said nothing. I expected the camera to break to a shot of the cacophonous throng, but the camera stayed fixed. Did nobody realize the significance of the event? Of crepe-hangers amid the bunting?
In almost every culture the crow and the raven are known as messengers and prophets. Their counsel has been sought, and their actions interpreted, from Scandinavia, to Britain, to the Americas, to the Far East. Our own Republic, our Senate, our Capitol, our symbols, are modeled after the Republic, the Senate, and the Capitol of Rome, where the appearance of a crow or raven atop the building, and every croak and caw, was marked and noted with care. But we are so much smarter and wiser than those ancient pagans. What use do we have for augury?
Well, six years later, the message seems clear. What promise survives? What covenant remains unstained? But the warnings of the crows have been drowned out by the squawks and heckling of another murderous crowd, resplendent in their black plumage, preening before taking the air, cackling amongst themselves, fluttering about the chambers uttering enigmatic judgments from their lofty perches.
Human judgment fails. Flesh is weak. But the gallows birds, the carcass pickers, the crows, ah, the crows are never wrong!
