Contradictions, a poem for America's 250th Anniversary
I was inspired by Zohran's 250th Anniversary speech to write this poem, which I hope you will enjoy. Photos of Marche and Hasan edited from nicantaya and Isaias on IG.
Contradictions
We’ve gorged ourselves on careless
pride: a flag, a bird, a name;
and cudgeled all who criticize
our fire, our loss, our game
By any count, we’re down and out
The empire crumbling fast
Two-hundred-fifty years of razing
something built to last
And just as soon as hope abounds
and things are going well,
We’ll pray the Earth to open up
and drag us into Hell
For liberty is far beyond
Her copper harbor stand—
and so condemn, the chains we wrought
on those that tilled this land
Forsaken are the buildings
where the warehoused workers lie
Forsaken, too, the quiet rooms
where prospects go to die
The President, by hook or crook,
is guarding rot and bloat
The Mayor speaks with chin held high
and daggers at his throat
And nothing stops corruption from
eroding coastal plains,
and nothing stops a blaze from
burning all within it’s range
But
— we are steadfast, if uncertain,
in haphazard march for change
We're under pressure from all sides
from foreign bodies, new and strange
And we are loving, if imperfect—
hands together, fingers clasped
—and there is movement towards atonement
There’s a dream within our grasp
Oh, can’t you feel it from the west?
Where what was stolen could return?
Or in the heat that rises north;
that wreck of bondage: overturned?
Or in the east, where waves are cresting
as newcomers climb ashore,
and to the south, all could be welcomed
as we never have before
I beg you once, no, twice, to hear me
when I call out, “Dawn will come!”
We aren’t there yet, but we’re headed
toward a distant, rising sun.