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Posts Tagged ‘citizen’

Dear Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on January 19, 2026| 6 Comments »


 
                  with language from the March on Washington Speech and the Letter from Birmingham Jail
 
Again we must learn how the destiny
of one citizen is the destiny of all.
We must learn we cannot walk alone.
The American dream of liberty
and justice for all is tarnished and torn
in the name of making our country great.
Where is our beacon? How many
deaths will it take? How much horror?
How much ache? Where is our dignity?
Where is our discipline? Where does
the dream still live? Is it in the icy streets
of Minnesota? In detention cells?
In the bare feet of the monks walking
our highways? In the hand-painted
protest signs all across America
proclaiming “We the People?”
Is the dream still alive in the gaps left
in government documents where words
have been banned, words such as “diversity,
woman, Native American, disparity,
inclusiveness, Black, equality, Hispanic,
oppression, community and immigrants?”
Is the dream in red blood in the snow?
In dried blood on the street? In voting booths?
In hope? Dr. King, you taught us we need not
be saints to make a difference. That like you,
we must show up frustrated and flawed as we are.
That freedom “must be demanded
by the oppressed.” Where is the dream?
Where does it live? How might it rise up
in our streets, recalibrate our minds,
and resonate like an anthem
ringing true in our chests?

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Dear Mr. Whitman,

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on September 20, 2025| 13 Comments »


 
I want to hear America singing
all those varied carols you mentioned.
But it’s noise now, Walt, more shouting 
than song. As if volume makes a leader.
Any singer knows being louder
just makes discord, and harmony
needs constant attunement
to every other singer.
I want to hear America listening.
Want a citizen chorus that knows
our voices are only as good as our ears.
I want a new song that begins
with a silence that stretches 
from sea to shining sea—
the kind of silence that holds
every one of us, every part of us.
And when the many parts do arise, 
glorious in their differences,
I want to hear inside them 
the careful attention that tunes
them to each other, I want to hear 
in our song the deep listening that makes
even the most uncomfortable dissonance 
beautiful.

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Revolution

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on April 5, 2025| 3 Comments »


After the political rally, standing on the corner
was the man in the pink flamingo onesie
and the handlebar mustache playing ukelele,
singing “This Land Was Made for You And Me,”
surrounded by folks still carrying their signs
for Peace, Diversity and Equality, and though
no one was listening, though there were no news trucks,
no microphones, no megaphones, and no way
any politician would hear their voices or see their signs,
there they were, singing and showing up despite,
and this was the moment that made me believe
in the path—not just the grand marches toward freedom,
but also the thin trails marked with courage and creativity,
small moments I can follow like bread crumbs
till this country again feels like home.

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Watching the American Flag Fully Unfurled

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on March 2, 2025| 15 Comments »


 
 
I say I love the still days best,
but today it’s the wind that thrills me,
how it moves the air
and blows old leaves
and whips my hair
it shifts the dunes
and roars through trees,
and shreds the clouds,
makes canyons moan,
and melts the snow
and spreads wild seeds,
makes energy,
and transports desert sand here,
 
but what I love best today of wind
is how it equalizes the atmosphere,
brings cool to what’s warm,
bring warm to what’s cool,
I love that it’s created by difference
and it diminishes difference, too.
What wind does our country
need now?
What great invisible force
could appear to equalize us
and whirl us into one?
Oh the wind, how it charges
the air today.
Just rise up, it seems to say. 

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Dear America,

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on July 3, 2024| 10 Comments »

Dear America,
 
 
today I will parade
not on your main streets
but mostly alone amongst
your aspen groves,
will praise your purple
mountain’s majesty,
your scarlet gilia,
your vast blue spruce.
I will praise the public land
beneath my feet
where someday soon
hawk’s wings will rise
from untouched duff,
and I will glory in
your spacious skies,
how quiet they can be.
America, just today
one of your sons
arrived with a giant
bouquet of rhubarb
he cut from his own wild yard—
a small proof of what
your finest citizens do—
find ways to support
other citizens,
no matter their color,
no matter their stripes.
America, in my one-woman
parade, with every step,
I am cheering for you.

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To Be Continued

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on October 9, 2017| 1 Comment »

 

 

 

In a time of national crisis, what our country really needs is a good poem.

—Herbert Hoover

 

This is the time when we must say to the stranger,

the other, sit here. Notice how difficult it can be

to even come to the same table, how hard

to look the other in the eye. Something in us screams,

“Right, I am right.” And it is hard to hear the voice

beneath that scream, a whisper of a gospel that says

nothing at all.

 

This is the time when we must say to ourselves,

I am also the stranger, when we must look

in the mirror and not know who it is we see—

someone capable of being more courageous,

more compassionate, more devoted, more

astonishingly vulnerable and connected

than we ever knew ourselves to be. Who

is that stranger in the mirror, we must ask,

and vow to never let her down.

 

This is the time when we must write the poems

our country needs, the poem that builds the bridge

from truth to truth and never touches the river

of lies. The poem that allows our country

to fall in love with itself again, the poem

with enough places set at its table

that everyone knows they have a place to sit

and the rest of us know when that person is missing

because their chair is empty.

 

This is the time for the beauty that passes

all understanding, a testament of goodness

that cannot be contained, a congress of delight.

This is the time to pick up your pen

and with your most tender, beautiful self

fight.

 

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