Ecce Everyman Poem by Tony Jolley

Everyman came to town today:
Didn't roll in effortlessly by the wide white route,
But came the long and narrow way round,
The only way round
Via the hard ground:
Via Montgomery,
Via adversity and history:
Via Dolorosa,
Nunc Via Gloriosa.

He looked like me –
Though we share nothing remotely
In the way of height or weight,
Neither colour nor race.
Still we looked the same
In the singular mirror of that moment.

He resounded in me;
Struck a chord so deep below the waterline
I felt sea speak to sea
And hope's high tide of possibility
Drown dither and doubt and float free
A whole fleet of opportunity
To catch the winds of change
That wait beyond the lee of party politics and nationality.

Friends, though we've never met
And almost certainly never will
Outside those quiet places of the soul
Where we share and dare wonder
Who, how, what if and why not,
I hope he'd recognise me, on sight:
I'm not of the US,
But I am of the kind of 'us'
That is ready for the kind of United States of Mind
He has in mind.