This poem is dedicated to America’s soul-searching crisis in the summer of 2011. It holds today’s reality against selected lines from Katherine Lee Bates’ 1910 “America the Beautiful,” set in italics.
America's the Summer Dream of 2011
By Zaman Stanizai
Across the wilderness
just this side of the amber waves
on the rolling hills
near the foot of the purple majesties,
America contemplates
a proposal of marriage with
Corporate Capitalism,
as she stands in deep thought
searching for her lost soul
in the dark reflections of time.
Farther away,
the juncture of
reason and resentment
reform and revolution
stand their ground
on the battlefield.
Tension cheers them on:
ideas rejected in shame,
ideals betrayed,
values abandoned in wilderness,
dreams denied.
Plutocracy courts Democracy,
on a blind date,
like fading beacons of hope.
From the far horizon in the east
under the spacious skies
the trail of hijacked wagons
screech their wheels
carry American ideals
held hostage by greed
who stand, guard whip in hand,
‘goaled in rush.’
Hostages seated facing back,
gazes lost in a trailing cloud of dust.
Identities’ cries held in crisis,
glimpsed in passing:
government of the people,
for the people…
separation of powers…
checks and balances…
private property…
labor unions…
entrepreneurial spirit…
land of the free…
home of the….
Wandering nostalgia
reflects in a mirrored pond.
The summer breeze rings in
America’s echoed whisper:
Confirm thy soul… thy soul…
in self-control,… control…
thy liberty in law… in law.
A soft laughter awakens me.
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