Our Country Tis Of Thee

Our country tis of thee

For you and me and the collective we

Sweet Land of Liberty

The true meaning applied will be 

when all of our citizenry

Have the same opportunity 

to labor for prosperity

And a valid measure of equality

When our nation’s wealth

 is seen in its diverse community

Then will individual potential

 be celebrated and assured

Thus becoming a Nation’s pledge concurred

Hope and possibility can both coincide

As twinned spirits 

of our self governing society

Justice and privilege won’t collide

Unless you are the majority 

of the lesser minority hued

In body and soul, poor and abandoned blue

Those who are otherized, marginalized, victimized,

trivialized theologized, fictionalized,

disfranchised,criminalized, penalized, capitalized

and propagandized

live in a state of uncertainty and defeat

That shapes their fate, and from belief 

in unity, they retreat

With the bone weary confirmation 

there is no validation

Affixed to any patriotic symbol, 

song or dedication

Or any flag saluting blessing 

that imparts the soul of a nation  

Neither to lift any citizen up from ethnic deflation,

prostration of station, generational subjugation,

starvation of dreams, resignation of resistance, 

Self-condemnation, exploitation of integrity and

gullibility,Neighborly deprivation                            

or xenophobic damnation  

There is only a caste like class status

of selective evenhandedness in mind,

Without applying value or fundamental respect                

for any cultural differences shown in kind  

We must realize and recognize

That those we choose to malign, define and confine

within a politically polarized view,

Tomorrow could include you

Let our past remind us of where we have been    

and who we want to be

Each and every tragic lash, noose, ball and chain,

divisive dividing walls

and all the bulldozed strip-mined, extinction

exploited, land grabbing fall of tree,

life value gone astray 

and river damned demise moments        

The relentless genocidal slash and burn

 in land, body, mind, and spirit

The whole hearted slaughter of what stands

quietly and beautifully substantial

On the pathway towards the next horizon

With each denial 

of our own societal accountability

Like an outstretched hand slapped away

Or a smile’s pearly white purpose 

shattered and excised

We turn from objectivity

and only subscribe to our own subjectivity

What we surmise and misconstrue

We falsely generate to be true

We sever our democracy at the knee

when we fail to see

That it is a mutually shared responsibility

to work together to be free

The pulse beat of our people

needs resuscitation and participation

Governance in practice must

in conscience continually renew

So that the legitimacy 

of our entire constitutional ideality

Mutually resides inherently 

within word and deed reality

Then the reliability and continuity

Of our democracy will indeed be true

In this our country tis of thee we can trust

Our Sweet Land of Liberty

For each and everyone of us-MLH