America. Be
Location
At the edge of the western wild, the red wood titans of California State languish
. Poplars throughout reminisce on days when ultra sunlight
Radiation bestowed their radii twice the current
Size. Diminished tenacity pours from the barkeeps tap for the once supreme—
Natives bathe with coins on desolate reservation tears:
the cowboys, the braves, the caballeros, and the mountaineers, all left manuscripts
Undecipherable.
The last great frontier, on the forefront empty of clout,
with pockets in a jacket west of here traded in for an I.O.U, and
A day’s pay, less than a day’s feed on the wages paid—
No independent in the freedom-land of freedom praised.
Hard working bodies digging for That freedom, thirsty, but
Why does the water have a leash and a high fever, when
The liquid used to love our bodies and no force was tamed?
Every river once fed the ethereal human light.
Not like these waters, spawning filth no animal can drink,
No animal can live on, no animal can die for—
Veins with viscous sap worth prostrating before life asking forgiveness of.
Two oceans now trample, two oceans untamed,
two oceans manifest the limitations of our claims. Birds can fly
As far as they need, but the soul of America lies
Deep in the weeds of too tired to cultivate, like some sleep
At a time most inopportune, where calamity ensues.
Money ran wild on the edge where no man treads with light souls.
The heavy stomp only squashed and killed and maimed: the land is
Worse off for the manifestation of our god given destiny.
Lord God, please lord, take the rifle’s aim from off our fellow.
Leave be the California Condor, the American Eagle, the Ivory
Billed Woodpecker, the Grizzly, the Jaguar, the Grey
olf, the Island Fox, the Red Wolf, the Cougar, the Homo Sapien.
Mothers, make your men behave, make your men believe, make your
Men be free, and know where the edges are meant for seeing
Into the frame of what it means to be a whole, united
People where no soul is left to squalid dissipation, no animal
indignantly executed, nor cultivated as a strictly profitable brute.
Men, Fathers, remain the pillars of prosperity,
for your wives, for your children, for the world.
Teach our boys and girls brute and equal delicacy:
strengthen the marrow for tomorrow, for today, forever.
With all people of the earth, with all beings of the earth,
With all substances of the earth, unite, give thanks; fight on behalf
Of wasted heaven, unutilized utopia, forgotten Elysium,
Where the greatest ones ever died and fear could not bewilder.
Abandon the overgrown hectare,
put up a path to a garden where fruits of your labor will be devoured
with splendor by the children, the grandest folks, our families.
The pastoral domain feeds every heart.
We are the titanic Red Wood, the Rocky Mountains,
the Grand River, and basket of bread,
the backyard half-acre tilled for a few tomatoes ripe with salt or eaten plain.
Red is the blood work and shed skin that reminds us of the extensive price life costs.
Blue are the jeans our knees scruff against rocks while mining and laboring,
we are regal in mind, but common in kin. Blue, are the colossal oceans
The infinite sky, the fathomless deep.
And white are the sheets that we lay down in, to wed, to dream, to die.
For the sake of all, stand up, wake up, strap on your eager boots everyday,
for work is not work when the children are fed, work is not work
when it’s meant for freeing the sufferers, keeping the
heart of all beating with resonant ease. Be well, America be!