On the Steps of the Jefferson Memorial

We invent our gods the way the Greeks did, in our own image—but magnified. Athena, the very mother of wisdom, squabbled with Poseidon like any human sibling until their furious tempers made the sea writhe. Zeus wore a crown of lightning bolts one minute, a cloak of feathers the next, as driven by earthly lust he prepared to swoop down on Leda. Despite their power, frailty ran through them like the darker veins in the marble of these temples we call monuments. Looking at Jefferson now, I think of the language he left for us to live by. I think of the slave in the kitchen downstairs.