The Senator; world's oldest bald cypress tree (approx. 3500 years old); photo by Amy Evenstad on Flickr (noncommercial use permitted with attribution / share alike).
Leadership
by Jean McGivney Boese
Louisiana designated Leadership by Jean McGivney Boese as the official state senate poem in 1999:
It is easy to bend with the wind and be weak,
Wrapped in silence when it would take courage to speak,
To do nothing when crises demand that you act;
To prefer a delusion to unpleasant fact.
But the easy evasions that dreamers embrace
Are denied to a leader with problems to face.
He must cope with the world as he finds it, and plan
To make each hard decision as well as he can.
He can't hide from the truth or deny what is real.
Though a lie might assuage all the fears people feel.
For the truth is the truth, and no lie can prevail.
In a world that is real, one must face truth or fail.