As mercury spills out
of a broken thermometer
and runs all over in
tiny, slippery balls

impossible to retrieve,
let alone use again, so
too, some say, a fragile
republic when broken

bleeds democracy not
retrieved but away. Others
say, it is as elastic
and resilient as a bun-

gee-cord after ten thou-
sand jumps. Fragile,
resilient? The fabric
is being tested with

lack of civility, lying,
fighting, pushing, pull-
ing, straining, defaming,
obscenely reframing what

it means to be the U.S.
of A. today, pushing
people toward violence
and a dictatorial warlord

instead of a venerable
president — an executive
with legislators and
judges, a Constitutional

Trinity, framed as checks
and balances by Reformed
theology and Greek and
Roman political philo-

sophy, being tested now
with bombast, anger, frust-
ration, intemperance in-
stead of the old weapons

of civil war — will the
republic endure or will
the fabric tear, will the
test tube crack and will

the Bill of Rights run
down the proverbial,
political drain after a
mere two hundred-forty

years, a nanosecond of
civilization and fleeting
world fame?