This is My Country

This is My Country

This is my country: well-dressed, unimpressed passers-by.
This is my country.
I don't mind.
This is my country:
You want free bagel?
    It's free.

This is my country: hear it.
It sings frustration and anger
and, on a good day,
sings
'Howdy, Neighbor, Howdy!'
and shares water color conversations
 over glasses of lemonade.

This is my country:
pleas, prayers, and anthems.
This land is your land and mine
and theirs,
owned and operated by
businessmen
and their hired labor.
Sounds equal.

This is my country:
sidewalks trod by
many generations of
my country before.
 A dollar to the minstrel boy.
   Keep the faith.
   Thank you.

This is my country,
divided 50 times over
and sub-divided evermore;
red on blue.
Neighbors nervous to say hello
cut glancing eyes away,
look down and walk on;
dog-tired dirty bums
greeting anyone who sees them;
   angry homeless men with their dogs
 tired of being ignored, wanting
 someone to look them in the eye;
someone who looks past their demeanor,
to find them at their aching heart.
This is my country: hoping for justice,
believing in freedom,
forgetting community.

This is my country:
a pulse
that quickens and slows
and forgets so quickly,
distracted, that
i need you to hope for me,
and, you need me to hope for you;
forever waiting
for Tragedy to remind us
that we are not so different;
that we are together always;
that we need to slow our egos
and entitlements
and quotas,
and take a little time
to share a glass of lemonade.

Spring

I am watched by Spring. That is all.
Her contented lips never smile;
her brow never condemns;
her cheek forever rests
in thought on her forefinger.
She wears a floral garland atop her head
and she watches. That is all.

Spring listens to my song.
She listens. That is all.
Her lips remain contented, approving;
she never excites
and never scorns.
I am shy with Spring.
She refuses to judge anything I say,
which means I get no compliments.
She waits for me to impress her,
 that is all,
so passively genial
and interestedly unconcerned.

Her gaze is aware of nothing in particular,
but everything,
so she sits contentedly airy
as if she herself was her own neckerchief
blossomed out of a bare tree branch
and freshens in her breath.

I could never invade her by talking,
but she doesn not mind to listen.
She is not firm in form,
yet she is of every way unshakeable character.
Too graceful for delicate, and, too delicate for stubborn,
nothing could ever disrupt her.
She is eternally her own.
 That is all.

Albuquerque

My body once wet with oils and sweat,
now dry as the bones within it;
my skin now itches with blisters and rash;
dusty eyes, caliced lips.
Love once poured as a fountain does,
poured and overflowed.
The well run dry as the climate around;
dry from desert and wind.
Forgiveness once sprang forth from my heart;
once lept with joyfull embrace;
now lays idle, a coward, deep away,
refusing to show his face.
The man who was has gone away quick.
I never saw him take his leave,
but he's now far gone and all that's left
is an arid skeleton of me.