Back to the Dream
I wonder if Kent State, If Woodstock, if Steinman’s
bra-burning revolution ever happened.
Did Martin Luther King, Jr. ever have a dream?
Can we ever overcome the worst of who we are
to be the best that we could be?
All this talk of border walls when we have too many
walls already: walls of racism, walls of sexism,
walls of ageism, walls of gender hate, walls separating
rich from poor, walls of religion that keep others out and
lock us in, walls of ideologies made of blood and sin.
Press your ear to the earth. Hear the heartbreak of Native Americans’
cry for who they were, for what they’ve lost.
Hear the blood of African slaves singing the misery made
of their lives, of their history, of their future degraded all for the sake
of the white man’s dream. Go to the cities and hear the girders scream
the immigrants’ plight and pain.
Listen to the train rails grieve the names of those who sacrificed
themselves for the claim of sea to shining sea.
We are not a melting pot—never were—nor a salad bowl.
We were only ever a dream of a land where all would be free to live,
free to thrive, free to be happy to be alive, to have pride in country
and peace of soul. But walls have a way of blocking dreams, and if we
are ever going to survive, we must let go of the hate, stop all the lies,
and tear all these walls to the ground.