I Am America

I.
I am America.
I am blueberry muffins and eggs-over easy
in silverfoil diners with blue neon signs and newspapers out front,
Where the regulars come to fill up on warmth
and the everpresent feeling of family,

I am picnic baskets made of straw,
and tall grass with milkweed,
Worn blankets to sit on,
and the smell of new mown hay drifting past from a farm nearby,

I am playgrounds with rusty swings and ancient maple trees,
and water fountains with bubbly spouts
that little children gleefully reach toward
as they try to catch the moving water with their tongues,

I am fourth-of-July parades,
and lawn chairs,
and iced tea on the front porch,
and the smell of chicken roasting in the oven,
and friends coming over for coffee and fresh-baked pie and a little talk,

I am polka festivals and Saturday-night dancing
with Hank Tomar and the Harmonics,
and clean white shirts at Sunday church,
and innocence, not arrogance,

I am rolling hills, and dirty streets, and windswept plains,
and airless apartments in cities that are always lit,
whose elegance lies in ancient fire escapes
that are havens in the summer heat,

I am chlorine-blue city pools,
and laughter of children,
and washrooms that smell of disinfectant,
and young mothers with the eyes of eagles watching their young,

I am the suffering of the lonely, of the hungry,
of the dreamless who live without hope,
and who hope only to escape from the dreamlessness.

I am the icons of the fast-food world - hamburgers and cokes,
pizza and buffalo wings,
french fries and happy meals,

I am speed of life wanting more and more speed,
striving for more and more doing,
no time to sit, no time to listen, no time,

And I am lazy days of going nowhere,
of wondering what it all means,
of waking up, for a moment, beyond the things I do,
into a wondering of who I am.

I am freedom. I am possibility.
I am golden opportunity knocking at the door at every moment,
And I am also the closed and silent door
for the many who strive to hear the sound of opportunity but cannot,

I am prayer and I am gratitude –
to that which watches over freedom
and creates endless possibility –
to the Source of life itself.

I am America.
I am strong, I am proud, I am weak, I am vain,
I am childlike, I am brash, I am plainspoken, I am noble,
I am wise, I am foolish, I am young, I am ancient,
I am the flame of endless possibility - the golden promise of an open-ended Life.



To "I Am America" - II