This poem grew out of the uneasy feeling that our public life is wobbling — still standing, still moving, but held together mostly by the ordinary people who keep showing up even when the system feels distant or diminished.

I wanted to explore the quiet, stubborn hope that lives beneath frustration: the belief that tending to our shared life, however small the gesture, still matters.

The poem leans on humor and everyday images to remind us that democracy is less a machine than a fragile, communal practice — something that endures only because we refuse to look away.

What We Hold Together

This morning, while munching my avocado toast,
I read that we might be living in something called post-democracy,
which sounds like the kind of place you’d find on the second floor of a mall,
between the massage chairs and the store that only sells lighthouse calendars.

Hands
Credit: Casbon family illustration

Apparently, elections still happen,
but mostly for old time’s sake —
like the way we keep singing “Happy Birthday”
even though no one believes the song improves the cake.

Meanwhile, the real decisions are being made somewhere else,
in a conference room with a view of an even larger conference room,
by people who use leverage as a verb
and have never once stood in line at the DMV
with the rest of us mortals clutching our little numbered tickets
like fading prophecies.

Still, the experts assure us everything is under control,
which is exactly what the experts said about the weather in Santa Barbara
the year the fog swallowed half the coastline
and 37 of our houseless neighbors slipped quietly out of the world,
as if the city had misplaced them in a drawer somewhere.

But don’t worry — this poem isn’t about despair.
It’s about the strange tenderness of realizing
the system is a bit like your aging uncle
who still insists on driving the family to Thanksgiving
even though he now confuses the brake
with the radio presets.

You love him.
You let him drive anyway.
You keep one hand hovering near the emergency brake
and the other on his shoulder,
because that’s what families do
when the road ahead is foggy
and the map is written in a language
no one remembers learning.

And maybe that’s the secret:
not outrage,
but the quiet, stubborn hope
that if we keep showing up —
voting, waving, arguing,
bringing sandwiches to the meeting no one attends —
the whole rickety thing might wobble its way
into a future that still has room for ordinary miracles.

Like a city remembering the names of its lost.
Or a government remembering the meaning of the word people.
Or you and me, still showing up,
not because we’re certain it matters,
but because almost hopeless things
have a way of leaning toward the hands
that refuse to let go.

So we stand in line again,
our numbered tickets warm in our palms,
feeling the faint hum of something trying to stay alive.
And when our turn comes, we step forward,
carrying the small, solemn knowledge
that what we tend tends to endure —
and that the whole fragile miracle
might shine a little longer
because we did not look away.

Santa Barbara resident Jay Casbon has devoted his professional journey to higher education, leadership and religious art history. He has served in distinguished academic roles, including provost at Oregon State University, graduate school dean at Lewis & Clark College, and a professor of education and counseling psychology. Jay is the author of several books, and most recently the co-author of Side by Side: The Sacred Art of Couples Aging with Wisdom & Love. He finds joy and clarity in writing poetry, restoring vintage watches, and collecting art that speaks to the soul. The opinions expressed are his own.