executed on this day, 1535
You, above all, knowing we’d never live
in Utopia, blessed strict words of law,
gripped them as shields from Henry’s plot to give
himself heaven’s power. Your wisdom saw
women’s minds equal to men’s, pushed for their
education. You counseled the king, ruled
as his chancellor. Records deem you fair
in legal judgments. Yet faith made you cruel,
burning heretics. What flailed your bare thoughts
in the tower, I wonder, knowing lies
alone could convict you, and did? You fought
Boleyn’s panel with savvy when they tried
you, their deceit hacking off your head, ax
felling that gifted brain honoring facts.
Roger Armbrust
July 6, 2013
