The Golden Anniversary: A Dual Monologue By Michael Ceraolo

The Golden Anniversary:  A Dual Monologue

         Monticello, Virginia

         July 4, 1826 12:50 PM

Last night I said

"No, doctor, nothing more"

These would be my last recorded words,

but not the last words I would say

Around 4 AM I called my house-slaves

to my room, including Sally,

                                          and

told them to prepare for my death

These words weren't recorded by history

                                                           (and

even almost two hundred years later

one historian would call the slaves servants;

it's time to be honest now)

I woke again around 10,

unable to speak,

                         and

died a few hours later

        Quincy, Massachusetts

        July 4, 1826  6:20 PM

Four days ago

a local delegation of dignitaries

asked for a proclamation

for the upcoming anniversary,

and though unable to issue

a lengthy proclamation

I obliged the with the words

"Independence Forever!"

When I awoke today,

having achieved my aim

of making it to the anniversary,

I said simply

"It's a great and glorious day"

                                            but

I knew it would be my last day on this Earth

As you may know I was a great hater,

and even as the end approaches

there are some I am unable to forgive,

such as the West Indian bastard

(bastard in every sense of the word),

but I am immensely happy that

Mr. Jefferson and I reconciled years ago:

earlier this afternoon I said

"Thomas Jefferson survives"

(though I would discover very soon

I had been mistaken about that)

In the early evening

I said to my granddaughter Susanna

"Help me, child, help me"

                                      but

there was nothing she could do

and I died shortly thereafter

Seeds

In my diary entry

for November 26, 1825,

concerning discussion about

the upcoming State of the Union message

at that day's Cabinet meeting,

I wrote

            "The plant may come late

though the seen should be sown early"

and in the message I sent

on December 6, 1825

I planted a seed,

                         calling for

"provision for the support of an astronomer"

                                                                noting

"throughout the whole American hemisphere

there is not one" observatory

(I note with a sense of staisfaction

that almost two hundred years later

there are over three hundred fifty

in the United States alone)

In calling for such observatories to be built

I used the metaphor

"light-houses of the skies"

                                       and

the metaphor and the idea itself

were roundly mocked by Jackson

and other non-intellectuals

who didn't see the benefit of science

(I see that hasn't changed much today)

The seeds would grow slowly:

it would take two decades

for the Naval Observatory to be built

And at the ceremony

to lay the first cornerstone

for a private observatory in Cincinnati

on November 9, 1843

I made a long speech,

my last public one,

                             which

mercifully will not be repeated 

here in its entirety

An excerpt, true then and now:

"The earth beneath his feet,

and the vault of heaven over his head, . . .

force themselves upon his observation,

and invite him to contemplation"