We Are America

we are America

Where are you, America?

Where is the dream that brought the endless, teeming masses to your shore?

Where is the lamp you lit and held beside the golden door?

Where is the tough, free spirit that cut across a country to the world?

Where is the pride that filled each one of us each time the flag unfurled?

Where is our past — the kindling brought together in an incandescent spark?

Where is our future — now that our great flame is dwindling into dark?

Oh, America

Enormous, sweet, improbably country

So drunk with the wine of freedom

You splash it from your glass and pour it on the ground.

Proud, mighty country, bound in chains of our own making.

Only we could shackle you so;

Only we could mute your song

To such a timid, lonely sound.

And where is God? The God we trusted in so long?

And how has right become so hard to tell from wrong?

Are the Dream, and the Light, forever dead?

Wait.

Wait now.

See the way that roughneck holds his head.

There’s something there — something felt, but never said.

A tight smile on his lips, steel in his eye

Nothing between me and God but a thousand miles of sky.

And he is America.

In the howling wind on a western slope

A farmer sweats, planting seed and hope.

And he is America.

And in some God-forgotten sad café,

For too much work, too little pay,

The one who gladly pulls her weary body up

To bring a smile, and pour another cup,

She is America.

And you…

And I…

We are America.

For the Dream and the Light

That was born in the souls

Of a handful of Scots, and Frenchmen and Poles

Of Irish and English and Chinese and Dutch

Outcasts, and slaves, and rebels and such

Has quietly passed through history

To three hundred million of you and me.

Rise.

Lift up your heart.

Stand.

Make a new start.

Move.

Reach out for a star.

Now.

Start right where you are.

Dream.

There’s a world for the winning.

Act.

Make a brand new beginning.

We can still make that dream come true;

We can still do it — me and you.

For this country’s whatever we make her to be,

And we can do anything — you and me.

We can lift that lamp back to the sky

For we are America —

You and I.