The following poem was written by my lovely bride, Kendra, as her gift to God and a present to me. There is something important that will be lost in this transmission. The poem itself makes up a picture of the Statue of Liberty. Keep that in mind as read her poem.
This poem is a tribute to our Lord, Jesus Christ, whose bloodied body gained for me true and everlasting liberty.
It is dedicated to my loving Husband, a humble defender of Christian liberty. It is my Christmas gift to him. I have never seen Rusty fail to pledge his life, honor, and sacred fortune for the cause of liberty and liberty’s God.
Nor have I seen him flinch when the pledge was exacted…
"Twilight in America" is a visual poem. It uses typographical, pictorial, and lexical means to create the finished work. Invisual poetry, also called concrete poetry, the text is arranged to represent the subject of the poem. Words, symbols, word fragments, lines, and white spaces contribute nuances of meaning. Below is my explanation of the image.
-Kendra Thomas
The words, "captured lighting" written across Liberty's forehead:
The captured lightning I speak of is the light of His Word, which inspired our nation's forefathers and captured their attention. In ancient Israel, the high priest wore on his forehead, "holiness to the Lord." It is through keeping the Word of God that people will see we are God's covenant people, made holy through the blood of Christ. It was this holiness that historian Alexis de Tocqueville saw, writing, "The Americans combine the notions of religion and liberty so intimately in their minds, that it is impossible to make them conceive of one without the other."
The tablet:
The date, 1776, our nation's founding, is on the original. In this depiction, Liberty's tablet reveals that our nation rests on the shoulders of Christian liberty. It rests on the strength, justness, and beauty of the Christian faith. Unfortunately, "Egypt's ways," a synonym for sin and oppression, have nearly corrupted the "love" of Liberty.
Liberty's extended arm holding the torch:
Her arm is detached from her body, signifying how we have severed our nation from the source of true liberty, the Word of God.
The light of His truth still burns brightly but our nation, as a body, does not lift His light to a lost world as our Christian forefathers did.
Finally, an extended arm represents strength and deliverance in the Bible. "With a mighty hand and an outstretched arm," God delivered His people. By rejecting Him, we have cut off His deliverance and our strength as a nation.
The reference to "twilight" across Liberty's form:
The words and stark blank lines, which cut through her image, speak to the division that her sins have caused and the judgment that will inevitably break upon her people, separating them from unity and brotherhood.
Twilight in America
Seventeen hundred and seventy six,
Our birthright on rock-hewn tablet reads.
While from Mount Sinai's ancient Decalogue,
Precious Liberty herself proceeds.
Freedom's lantern, captured lightning,
Liberty holds within her hand.
Lit not by paltry power, for
Our freedom was Providence planned.
Emmanuel, Liberty's Sculptor,
With his own bruised, broken body lay,
Freedom's unblemished Foundation Stone,
And pedestal for Independence Day.
On Liberty's strong, fair shoulders,
A nation, as a palla, God lays.
While sturdy, steady feet advance
Unfettered freedom from Egypt's ways.
Eternal vigilance, her dear bride price,
Christian forefathers faithfully paid.
Yet unfaithful sons forgot her value;
Her chaste marriage covenant betrayed.
From Liberty's troubled waters,
Lifts a fog of unrequited love,
And in the firmament's shadows,
Beats a melancholic mourning dove.
And as her lovers' fragile idols,
Crash upon her wave tossed shores,
A new foundation is constructed,
From their shattered pagan mores.
Liberty's image in the harbor,
Reflects off a burnished, blackened sea.
For her sins have reached the heavens,
And a twilight has been decreed...
It is twilight, twilight, twilight in America.
O America, America,
God Shed His grace, His sacred grace, on thee.
Yet His perfect law of Liberty,
You proscribe, while iniquity decree.
Liberty's many foreign lovers mock,
The righteousness with which she was crowned.
For beneath her sculpted, patina robe,
The blood of unborn children is found.
The seven rays of her diadem,
Are now seven things her Sculptor abhors,
Pride, lies, murder, harm, discord, swearing,
Wicked thoughts that pass through her golden doors.
Liberty's copper wrists enshrined,
By thick chains that once lay at her feet.
Her torch that burned with sacred Light,
Snuffed by morality's dark defeat.
Lift the light of His holy Word,
Oh, our Mother of Exiles on the Sea;
Bow before the pierced, bloodied feet
Of He who sets wretched refugees free.
Search the skies for shafts of light,
And to freedom's Sculptor pray.
You, who hope against the night,
Know you are Christ's émigré.
A perpetual Cimmerian darkness,
Will our Liberty's twilight be?
Or will the Day Star rise in the breast of men,
Heralding her new jubilee?
