...to Look for America

 
A soft hallelujah escapes my lips
While I feel a nostalgia in my heart…

Perhaps it was those parades I marched all those years ago,
As we played our drums to Washington Post and other Sousa compositions,
While crowds of people applauded and waived,
A pretty girl waited for a soldier with open arms,
A mother cried for a son who didn’t come back,
A father who came home in a wheelchair to his walking toddler,
All those little flags and sparklers celebrating…

It’s difficult to find common ground in these Divided States of mind,
Searching for peace and harmony while harm and money separate us,
Whatever happened to the blueprints of the greatest nation?
Are they now drawn up in the boardrooms in the highest towers?
Or in secret backrooms amidst clouds of expensive cigars
With the pop of a champagne bottle
Congratulating each other with the familiar “we’re going to be rich!”
And all away from the public eye…

The stock ticker doesn’t tell me anything about a personal account,
It doesn’t measure the individual struggle,
A late bill,
A roof overhead,
An empty refrigerator,
A stomach growling with hunger pangs,
A mother crying quietly in the night, praying…

Somewhere something somehow there was a disconnect,
The land of the free seems like a faraway dream
When those of a different color are told to go home
As Old Glory in bright red, white and blue waves in the distance
While at the forefront there is shouting with hatred and indifference.

God Bless…

I look for America in the common man,
In those working the land,
In factories,
In hospitals,
In the open roads,
In cubicles,
In classrooms and campuses,
In the churches, mosques and temples,
In the steel beams rising high above the city,
In the marketplaces and variety of faces,
In old couples holding hands at the mall,
In the smile of a small child while he sits in the supermarket cart as I waive hello,
In the sound of friends laughing,
In music and dance and past times that liven the soul
Ha-lle-lu-jah…

I look for America in the human kindness and good deeds of its citizens,
In the decency of a fellow man who treat each other with respect,
In the fundamental hope and understanding that “everything is going to be OK”
No matter how grey the skies may get.

I look for America in the strength and resolve in the face of adversity,
In the diversity of culture, choice and creed,
In those yearning to belong and be free,
In the struggle that defines us as kind beings in an ever-changing world.
Perhaps it’s the echo of my drum,
The memory of parades,
That old ha-lle-lu-jah, escaping softly,
A small prayer while everything is currently so divided,
Optimistic that someway we’ll see the light,
And that someday in the future it will be a little more United.