For Russell Kirk

The panting ideologues locked in their rooms
Hear the word ‘order’ and cry out in fear
That it is just a shibboleth for dooms
As yet unseen but whose goosesteps they hear.

But, it is better thought of as the word
A bachelor mulls as he writes through the night
And which enables him, some thought occurred,
To set it down in prose both broad and tight.

While others lapse upon their couch in dreams,
Or type with bloodshot eyes and whiskey breath,
The ordered man appears as his work seems
Fixed with a permanence to outlast death.

Cathedral glass has color and firm border,
As do such men formed in the love of order.