American Executor: Gerald Ford

No election grants him office’s height,

No campaign places the nation’s trust;

He enters through a constitutional right,

Where broken faith has left the system thrust.

The chair he takes is burdened by the dust

Of scandal’s weight and shaken public hand—

He holds the office with a healing hand.

The resignation leaves an empty place,

The first to rise through a process newly formed;

He stands before a nation needing grace,

A government by distrust heavily stormed.

His task is not to conquer or reform,

But bring back faith throughout the troubled land—

He holds the office with a healing hand.

The tapes, the hearings, all the wounds remain,

The question of executive power’s reach;

A nation wonders whether trust again

Can bind the people and the ones who teach.

He seeks a quieter path, a different speech,

A presidency restored where it can stand—

He holds the office with a healing hand.

Then comes the choice that defines his days:

The pardon granted to his former chief;

A decision made to end the endless maze,

Yet one that brings both anger and disbelief.

He hopes to turn the page toward relief,

But finds division waiting close at hand—

He holds the office with a healing hand.

The war abroad reaches its final scene,

The embassy falls as Saigon’s fate is sealed;

A chapter closes, painful and unseen,

A nation faces wounds that will not yield.

The conflict leaves a battlefield revealed,

And Ford must guide a country through the loss—

He holds the office with a healing hand.

At home, the economy begins to strain,

As inflation and unemployment rise;

He seeks solutions through a difficult campaign,

With public patience wearing thin beneath the skies.

The presidency must compromise

Where simple answers cannot be planned—

He holds the office with a healing hand.

He governs not through sweeping acts of will,

But through restraint and restoration’s art;

The office, wounded, requires a still

And careful hand to mend the broken part.

He understands the presidency’s heart

Is trust between the ruler and the land—

He holds the office with a healing hand.

Though only briefly does his tenure last,

His purpose lies beyond a single term:

To bridge the present with a troubled past,

And let the damaged institution affirm

That law and order still may stand firm.

The executor remains what people planned—

He holds the office with a healing hand.

So stands the thirty-eighth in the line,

A president no voters chose at first;

Yet history grants him a unique design,

A guardian through a nation’s deepest thirst.

He did not seek to make the office burst

Beyond the limits others had command—

He held the office with a healing hand.

And from his years, one lesson still survives:

That leadership may sometimes mean repair;

That nations are sustained not only by drives,

But by the patience of a person’s care.

The executor must sometimes simply bear

The weight of what another left behind—

He holds the office with a healing hand.

Envoi:

O steward of a wounded public strand,

You bore the office with a healing hand;

You sought to mend what scandal had unmanned,

And restore faith throughout the troubled land—

He holds the office with a healing hand.