Oh my America, my beloved America...
The smell of your cooking.
The roar of your crowds.
The din of your business.
To hear your elation when the Anthem is played at assembly.
To see your pride filled faces when your children walk at graduation.
To feel your patriotism when your people march
to the parade band
to save a foreign land
to win an historical stand
behind your flag stripes unfurled.
To be an heir to your inspiration to the realization of your labors.
To be a member of achievement of advancement of your dreams.
To be a legatee of your relentless rebellion
against paternal oppression
against prejudiced persecution
against despotic obligation
to reclaim the freedom of volition usurped.
Oh my fathers, my beloved forefathers...
The tyranny against which you fought.
The prudent lessons that you’ve taught.
The idealistic independence that you sought.
If you could walk the country that was your home,
Across the Appalachians
where once lived proud Indian nations.
Across the western plains
settled by rails, ties and trains.
Across the Continental Divide
or the Grand Canyon deep and wide.
Across the deserts Nevada and Californian
to meet the Sierra Nevada Mountains,
And over, through the prolific basins
to the beautiful shores of the Pacific Ocean.
All across this fertile land,
from coast to coast,
what an accomplishment you could boast
that by taking pen and musket in hand
the paradise you opened for we children to roam.
If you could know how far your children have come.
From afternoon battles on horseback
and blazing cannons,
To midnight smart bomb attack
and nuclear weapons.
From commencing prairie schooner expeditions
and Manifest Destiny,
To conceiving Kennedy’s lunar visions
and the nation’s dichotomy.
From your desperate revolution
and devout libertarians,
To our democratic election
of tyrannic rhetoricians.
If you could see what that fervent dream has become.
That promise you proposed
and how we filled it,
how we’ve degraded,
corrupted and pawned it.
The structure you sired
and how we flawed it,
how we’ve eroded,
compromised and deformed it.
Oh my fellow citizens, my mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, strangers,
lovers and friends...
The fears you must have.
The fate you must brave.
The front you must live...
To protect our investment from the wolves of opportunism.
To retreat to entrenchment in our boxes of isolationism.
To elect the encroachment of political favoritism
upon our liberty,
upon our identity,
upon our time and prosperity,
upon our minds and their inalienable sanctity,
For the preservation of your reclusive little world.
