New York City’s City Hall
Park’s a public park —
Though closed off to the public —
With a statue there of Nathan Hale
The British hung him
By the neck
By 66th and Lex
For spying on them
For Washington
In 1776
He was 21, a college kid
Opposed to kings
Ben Franklin stands
Across the street, Park Row, nearby
And yet
The two don’t interact
Their lines of sight don’t intersect
They’re looking to the north perhaps
To Polaris, for guidance
Hale,
says Franklin, means health
Or heal, or whole
And Nathan means to give
or gave
So Nathan Hale:
He who gave all
And for what?
The big idea
Or the beautiful idea
Since beauty means fairness as well
Just ask that mirror
on the wall
And fairness of course
You don’t need Rawls
To tell you that justice means fairness
For all
And justice the word
From the Latin word ius
Derives from the Vedic word Yos
Meaning health, or hale, or whole
Which the angel desires to do,
To make whole
To repair the world
And, in fact, does
Wherever you stop killing it
