Consensus
Too soon some
of we became
they
None of us
wished this
for ourselves
Yet some
wished the rest
less
Moved to move
many away
from the most
Chose to nominate
the preterite
out of our midst
And the song of agreement
went out from amongst
us went wrong
In the trying
of times
trials multiplied
The darkening colors
of closing time shaded
our prospect
But ours was a music
of consensus could it
only live
In a dissolute time
ours was a resolution
were it allowed to sound
The profound space
of ourselves
could it but breathe
In the free air of
our improvisings
was community
Airing our differences
to the rhythms of
deep time
As deep listening
to the welling waves
of thought
Transposes into keys
to the kingdom
registers of faith
We shall gather
in the rest
we shall gather by the river
Scoundrel time
is not to be
our time
We play
against it and are called
free
Copyright © 2026 by A. L. Nielsen. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on January 16, 2026, by the Academy of American Poets.
“‘Consensus’ is drawn from an ongoing project titled Trident. ‘Book One’ is now complete, with each entry in the sequence responding to a recording of a [jazz] trio, in this instance the recording of the same title by the McCoy Tyner group for the album Supertrios. An earlier portion of this project, titled Supertrios (Disc One), was published by the Bodily Press [in 2025]. Today’s political turmoil and challenges to democracy are reflected in the lyric verse of this project. Trident adapts the three-step stanzas of [the] late William Carlos Williams, while listening closely to jazz performance.”
—A. L. Nielsen