Alexander's hair

Hat hair, we call it,
lacking all respect.
The forelocks of our forefathers
have a certain upright air.
None so proud, so prominent
as Alexander Campbell's.
In every view, first painted young,
then engraved yet strong,
let alone the elderly photographs,
he has a shock of hair
that always is making a statement.
It says to me he rode, he hiked, he traveled,
he melted miles and paused to preach.
The trip from hitching post to pulpit
was often direct, without detour,
and mirrors rare enough,
infrequent as pipe organs on the frontier.
Necessity became a tradition,
practice made a sort of perfect display,
an exclamation point
to punctuate his sterling, sharply-framed
sermons, speaking of the sword
that had two-edges, but did not
find use in cutting hair, no more
than would Samson himself.
More Jacksonian than Jackson,
as Old Testament-y as Amos,
the New Testament a twinkle deep in his eyes,
but Acts the blueprint that caught his gaze.
He laid down one last time,
singing hymns with family, beard
and hair spread upon the pillow
as the children & soon-to-be widow
wept, and held in memory
what they would one day write.
Dead, gone, this March 4,
they called a sculptor to take a last
impression.
It missed one thing:
the wet plaster of the death-mask
smoothed his hair against the skull,
no longer alive and emphatic.
At the last, his hair laid down.