of The Free, The Brave.
Of BBQ pits and beer
lazy days
work free
bubbling over
with children screaming
bicycle streamers
bells chiming in unison
"the parade daddy!
The parade!"
Swirls of light
leave shivers upon
the skin.
The bangs
echo off the mountain
peaks, slowly
being swallowed
into the trickling
flow of the
river,
shaken awake.
There,
in the still,
tall Birch
does he sit.
Listening
to the crickets,
the shrill of the
fox, and the
scream of the
eagle.
There he sits.
Looking out into
to the burning sunset
of iridescent pinks,
oranges, and yellows.
His heart
flutters.
"America.
How does it come?
Where does it stand?
Lost in Shadows
Assimilated.
Watered Down.
A non-specific
genus?
Pride? Proud of
what?
America?
What is America?"
He burns...
"Proud to destroy,
land that I
cherish?
Proud to annihilate,
life, the lives
of my brethren.
They of Cree, be of
Choctaw, Quapaw,
Cherokee.
A Nation
proud
long before
British legs
'claimed'
soil that never
was their's
to be
taken.
Proud to re-write
the tribal history
of the Tongan,
Kānaka Maoli,
Sāmoan,
Māori
peoples.
Anakala, Anake
Tutu
devastated at the
loss of its last
Monarch.
Ursurped without permission.
Misappropiated for
generations
by white stock holders.
Destroying...
culture
language
people
by
Pen,
Film,
and
Tongue.
What is America?
An open door for the persecuted.
The beaten, the hated.
For ancestors,
Irish potatoes were death.
It meant a land of sustenance.
For ancestors,
Russian Tsarist were captors.
It meant a land of deliverance.
For ancestors,
Polish pogroms meant decimation.
It meant a land of Hope.
What is America?
What is America?
With is streets
filled with
Homeless,
drug ridden
barrios
and swollen
with the
declining health
of its patriots.
What pride our
governmental body
has for its people!
Rejoice
in the
Pride.
America,
as you struggle to eat,
as you stuggle to sleep,
as you struggle to keep
your menial job,
as you struggle to pay
for your child's
needs.
America.
"Give me your tired,
your poor
Your huddled mass
yearning
to breath
FREE."
What is America?
Capitalist Dream.
Corporate Monkey
Launderer's Scheme
Dybbuk's Dream.
Playful Slumber.
Pardise, Lost.
Rousing Thunder.
Quiet Wonder.
Disappointment.
Beacon of Hope.
Beguiler of
Dreams.
All of these?"
He asks,
with pale gray
eyes,
sincere
in his movements.
"Can you say,
with out
equivocation,
America the Beautiful?"
Where do I stand,
ill-aligned
Where shall I be
with only me?
© 2014 DNKG Through Omaha Eyes
