MORNING IN AMERICA

MORNING IN AMERICA

They'll be building tent cities on the greens,
seventh and ninth fairways are already crowded.
The're nearer the Lakes
where the tent dwellers go to drink and defecate.

They put the polo ponies out to graze
And turned their manure to victory garden patches
Celebrating the defeat of the tomato beetle,
No nuclear weapons this time.

For money they trade memorabilia,
especially framed in silver or tin
Each has a picture now meaning nothing,
As it is a neighbors loved one
Departed for the price of some make do necessity
matches, soap or paper, finding its way into the lake.

They're are no more heroes in Hollywood's America
No movies about the great migration to the greens.
It's a scrappy place
Filled with rape, vandalism and especially the death of promise.

For promise was the girl next door, the house with the picket fence,
Before it was foreclosed
Before it was turned to firewood.

Oh, mount the polo ponies ride,
There is one more gallop in these aging beasts
Toward the wind and hope
But leave behind the ghosts
The ones that promised so much
But only after you signed on the dotted line.

Leave behind the competition and the hate
Of immigrants both new and late
Of black and brown and in between;
The Colleges and Ivy gates,
The reservations and downtowns
the tombs of people free and proud
And reach the plain and shout out loud.

This is the America I knew and loved
The grass, the wind so wild and sweet
Bury now her sins and start anew with people bold, unbeaten, true.

And in this place amarking stone
We had once failed
But now we've grown.

SS