Beneath the Dome

Today’s offering is a tribute to two political figures who had a significant impact upon my life. I actually wrote this poem sitting on the steps of the California State Capital, the dome I refer to being the dome of Capital Rotunda. It was on the evening of my father’s retirement party. My father, you see, was a California State Senator for two terms during the 1970s, after which he spent twenty years as a lobbyist in Sacramento. He was actually the Chairman of the Republican State Central Committee when the then Governor Reagan was first elected by the people of California. It was Reagan who appointed my father to the senate, after another legislator left office midterm, and later supported him in a special election. Without digressing, suffice it to say that this selfsame Capital that my father retired from was the very one where Ronald Reagan served during his tenure as Governor. Now the recently departed President Reagan will lie in state under the dome of the Rotunda in our nation’s capital for the remainder of this week. Both men loved the people and states they served, and were generally loved and respected by those whom they served ... and served with. I lost my own father recently and the death of President Reagan, his friend and colleague of old, makes my parting words from the Capital steps all the more poignant. The image that shall ever remain etched in my own mind from that moment is of Capital dome lit up against the evening sky, with large California and American flags flying in the foreground. The death of President Ronald Reagan, that beloved icon of democracy and idealism, comes as a great loss to us all. For me, the end of his particular era of uniquely American politics holds a double sting and is, therefore, even more bittersweet due to my own recent personal loss. To those two statesmen, the one I loved so well and the one so well loved by a grateful nation, I bid a fond farewell. As I quietly salute them, the chords of my own heart whisper one final refrain of taps.

Beneath the Dome
How many times have I climbed these steps
In the past thirty years and more
How many hours in these hallowed halls
Have I labored, a countless score
I have spent my life beneath this dome
Beyond these pillars of white
Serving the people and state I love
Fighting for what was right
Now, alas, my term must end
With the end of an era, it seems
As I turn to pursue a different life
And chase after different dreams
I gaze back wistfully, once again
At the Capital, lit up so bright
At the bear flag and the stars and stripes
Waving to me through the night
I’ll miss the rush of activity
And this place I have called my home
I’ll miss the friends who’ve meant so much
And my life beneath the dome
By Frank Carpenter ©