Poetry

Song

Dance to your own drum, sing in your own key

I sing the song of America, my country, sweet land the clay from which I was made where my ancestors sailed before there was an island to receive them and again, later, leaving their names upon the island’s wall Believers, all of them in the promise of freedom and rebirth with passion enough to join a revolution to stand up for the stricken with courage enough to weather the tyrant’s Tower

I sing the song of Texas, the proud state that raised me for the hometown much maligned for my grandparents, forging south Believers, all of them in our ability to strive and achieve I sing for the hope that burns like a fire in the heart stacking hard work and perseverance layer on layer, year on year for love, the mortar to hold the life of a family together that produced a name to stand behind and the treasure that grows the more it is given away like a lucky penny in my pocket

I sing for the memory of the individuals who built this place in their humanity, in all their triumphs and defeats in their trials and errors, their rights and wrongs I hear them singing back how we are all one in our successes and failures how the tides from this turbulent sea of liberty rush out from our shores to touch the hands of the world how the prize we seek hides like a pearl not in the shell of desire but in the glowing mantle of compassion and duty I sing, because I still believe in the dream

This poem is part of my response to #POMPrompt#16 ; this is the third of three poems I have on that prompt. 3 at 43, singing the song of another year of me. . . . .