I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear,
Those of mechanics, each one singing his as it should be blithe and strong,
The carpenter singing his as he measures his plank or beam,
The mason singing his as he makes ready for work, or leaves off work,
The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat, the deckhand singing on the steamboat deck,
The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench, the hatter singing as he stands,
The wood-cutter’s song, the ploughboy’s on his way in the morning, or at noon intermission or at sundown,
The delicious singing of the mother, or of the young wife at work, or of the girl sewing or washing,
Each singing what belongs to him or her and to none else,
The day what belongs to the day—at night the party of young fellows, robust, friendly,
Singing with open mouths their strong melodious songs.

A Rock, A River, A Tree
Hosts to species long since departed,
Marked the mastodon,
The dinosaur, who left dried tokens
Of their sojourn here
On our planet floor,
Any broad alarm of their hastening doom
Is lost in the gloom of dust and ages.

But today, the Rock cries out to us, clearly, forcefully,
Come, you may stand upon my
Back and face your distant destiny,
But seek no haven in my shadow.
I will give you no hiding place down here.

You, created only a little lower than
The angels, have crouched too long in
The bruising darkness
Have lain too long
Face down in ignorance.
Your mouths spilling words

Armed for slaughter.
The Rock cries out to us today, you may stand upon me,
But do not hide your face.

Across the wall of the world,
A River sings a beautiful song. It says,
Come, rest here by my side.

Each of you, a bordered country,
Delicate and strangely made proud,
Yet thrusting perpetually under siege.
Your armed struggles for profit
Have left collars of waste upon
My shore, currents of debris upon my breast.
Yet today I call you to my riverside,
If you will study war no more. Come,
Clad in peace, and I will sing the songs
The Creator gave to me when I and the
Tree and the rock were one.
Before cynicism was a bloody sear across your
Brow and when you yet knew you still
Knew nothing.
The River sang and sings on.

There is a true yearning to respond to
The singing River and the wise Rock.
So say the Asian, the Hispanic, the Jew
The African, the Native American, the Sioux,
The Catholic, the Muslim, the French, the Greek
The Irish, the Rabbi, the Priest, the Sheik,
The Gay, the Straight, the Preacher,
The privileged, the homeless, the Teacher.
They hear. They all hear
The speaking of the Tree.

They hear the first and last of every Tree
Speak to humankind today. Come to me, here beside the River.
Plant yourself beside the River.

Each of you, descendant of some passed
On traveller, has been paid for.
You, who gave me my first name, you,
Pawnee, Apache, Seneca, you
Cherokee Nation, who rested with me, then
Forced on bloody feet,
Left me to the employment of
Other seekers—desperate for gain,
Starving for gold.
You, the Turk, the Arab, the Swede, the German, the Eskimo, the Scot,
You the Ashanti, the Yoruba, the Kru, bought,
Sold, stolen, arriving on the nightmare
Praying for a dream.
Here, root yourselves beside me.
I am that Tree planted by the River,
Which will not be moved.
I, the Rock, I the River, I the Tree
I am yours—your passages have been paid.
Lift up your faces, you have a piercing need
For this bright morning dawning for you.
History, despite its wrenching pain
Cannot be unlived, but if faced
With courage, need not be lived again.

Lift up your eyes upon
This day breaking for you.
Give birth again
To the dream.

Women, children, men,
Take it into the palms of your hands,
Mold it into the shape of your most
Private need. Sculpt it into
The image of your most public self.
Lift up your hearts
Each new hour holds new chances
For a new beginning.
Do not be wedded forever
To fear, yoked eternally
To brutishness.

The horizon leans forward,
Offering you space to place new steps of change.
Here, on the pulse of this fine day
You may have the courage
To look up and out and upon me, the
Rock, the River, the Tree, your country.
No less to Midas than the mendicant.
No less to you now than the mastodon then.

Here, on the pulse of this new day
You may have the grace to look up and out
And into your sister’s eyes, and into
Your brother’s face, your country
And say simply
Very simply
With hope—
Good morning.

We are first to cover our hearts
with our hands, sing “My Country,
’Tis of Thee,” and wear la Americana flag shorts.
We swap Medalla for Budweiser. Go to Shoney’s
and order the all-you-can eat breakfast. No one
cares if we waste food as long as we leave a decent
tip and speak quietly. Leave La Isla’s conversaciones
at the kitchen table. We are encouraged to buy the biggest
trucks and waste gas. Take over the road and parking
spaces. People make way when they see us. What kind
of horsepower do you get? They admire strength.
We are told not to ask those back home to send us
pique and café. We should tamper our tongues
and get the mild options. We go to Starbucks
and get wild concoctions like unicorn berry frappuccino.
Everything tastes too sweet. But this, they say,
is the American way. Sugar. Sugar. More sugar.
Our coworkers just go ahead and call us JL
and AE because they butcher our real names
Josefa Luz and Agapito Efraín. Everyone goes by some
initials anyway, they claim. Look at JFK and MLK.
Juanito is Buddy. Everyone here gets a nickname too.
We are forgetting the cuentos about the iguana thief.
Now, it’s blah, blah, blah about parking as wide
as bedrooms. Rows and rows of different types
of water in stores. Community meetings with five
different types of cake and strawberry swirl ice cream.
Everything is so sweet, but they give us plates
swathed in foil. It is the American way.
Some signs say English only, no Spanish allowed.
There is the look to keep our rolling rrrrrs to ourselves.
Pronounce rice so that it doesn’t sound like fries.
Remember it’s soup or salad (not super salad).
And delete the word focus from our vocabulary
(it always sounds like fuck us). The waiter smiles
when we leave a nice tip. Because tipping is the American
way. Please come again. Take some mints. Here are the toothpicks.
Goodies on the way out. How nice. How American.
The junk mail is bigger and brighter. The flyer
from the neighborhood dentist pops orange in chili pepper
font with promises to make teeth white, white, white!
The flyer comes with a coupon, a special, something
on sale. How can it be any more American than that?

I come from the kidnapped,
                                    the assaulted––
my country’tis of reparations as in-store credit
                                    backordered to bankruptcy

It is me & my trophy wife
passing as a dream of some kind

All I want is 40 dead mules
& an acre of land w/ a lighthouse
              right above the porch of the great Atlantic Ocean
              just in case any of my ancestors tasted nasty & made it.

I come from a people who pay a penalty every sunrise
& divinate to paroled gods with rancid hog maws.

The stripes plowed into my grandfather’s back
will have to stand in for our family album.

Somebody threw some stars at my grand-momma’s head
& said ‘betcha won’t ask for no freedom no mo’!

Natives in prison-issue war bonnets say:
I come from a poisoned land that recycles children
           into artillery shells
                      & where dark skin is good as
                                 an invisibility cloak

            until the police arrive.

I am proud to be a _____________
where I can hold my head up and drown
in the downpour of state sanctioned cancer.

I am proud to hold my place
in back of the line.

I come from a land that’s open all night
like a shotgun wound.

& as for ya’ll tired,
                                   ya’ll poor
                                             ya’ll huddled masses
yearning to breathe free

Fuck ya’ll!

I come from a place promising
a burning cross in every yard

& two meth labs in every garage
          & when I say: meth lab

I mean golden
                        retrievers smoking crank.

The country I come from

I can flash all its gang signs
           & beatbox all their anthems.

I come from a place­­––
actually, I don’t know where I come from

I just know I woke up here.

My babies are gone.
My house was on fire.
& I couldn’t breathe.

1

Rise O days from your fathomless deeps, till you loftier, fiercer sweep,

Long for my soul hungering gymnastic I devour'd what the earth gave me,

Long I roam'd amid the woods of the north, long I watch'd Niagara pouring,

I travel'd the prairies over and slept on their breast, I cross'd the Nevadas, I cross'd the plateaus,

I ascended the towering rocks along the Pacific, I sail'd out to sea,

I sail'd through the storm, I was refresh'd by the storm,

I watch'd with joy the threatening maws of the waves,

I mark'd the white combs where they career'd so high, curling over,

I heard the wind piping, I saw the black clouds,

Saw from below what arose and mounted, (O superb! O wild as my heart, and powerful!)

Heard the continuous thunder as it bellow'd after the lightning,

Noted the slender and jagged threads of lightning as sudden and fast amid the din they chased each other across the sky;

These, and such as these, I, elate, saw—saw with wonder, yet pensive and masterful,

All the menacing might of the globe uprisen around me,

Yet there with my soul I fed, I fed content, supercilious.

2

'Twas well, O soul—'twas a good preparation you gave me,

Now we advance our latent and ampler hunger to fill,

Now we go forth to receive what the earth and the sea never gave us,

Not through the mighty woods we go, but through the mightier cities,

Something for us is pouring now more than Niagara pouring,

Torrents of men, (sources and rills of the Northwest are you indeed inexhaustible?)

What, to pavements and homesteads here, what were those storms of the mountains and sea?

What, to passions I witness around me to-day? was the sea risen?

Was the wind piping the pipe of death under the black clouds?

Lo! from deeps more unfathomable, something more deadly and savage,

Manhattan rising, advancing with menacing front—Cincinnati, Chicago, unchain'd;

What was that swell I saw on the ocean? behold what comes here,

How it climbs with daring feet and hands—how it dashes!

How the true thunder bellows after the lightning—how bright the flashes of lightning!

How Democracy with desperate vengeful port strides on, shown through the dark by those flashes of lightning!

(Yet a mournful wall and low sob I fancied I heard through the dark,

In a lull of the deafening confusion.)

3

Thunder on! stride on, Democracy! strike with vengeful stroke!

And do you rise higher than ever yet O days, O cities!

Crash heavier, heavier yet O storms! you have done me good,

My soul prepared in the mountains absorbs your immortal strong nutriment,

Long had I walk'd my cities, my country roads through farms, only half satisfied,

One doubt nauseous undulating like a snake, crawl'd on the ground before me,

Continually preceding my steps, turning upon me oft, ironically hissing low;

The cities I loved so well I abandon'd and left, I sped to the certainties suitable to me,

Hungering, hungering, hungering, for primal energies and Nature's dauntlessness,

I refresh'd myself with it only, I could relish it only,

I waited the bursting forth of the pent fire—on the water and air waited long;

But now I no longer wait, I am fully satisfied, I am glutted,

I have witness'd the true lightning, I have witness'd my cities electric,

I have lived to behold man burst forth and warlike America rise,

Hence I will seek no more the food of the northern solitary wilds,

No more the mountains roam or sail the stormy sea.

It’s true. Some nights I leave 

the disarray of donations, frost-lipped boxes spilling 
               uselessly into the dark; the woodstove, always begging us 

to chap our hands on the hatchet 
                                              in the wind-raw night and— 
                                                                                              I drive and drive 
to the fluorescence of Prairie Knights, promised land 

of internet and limp quesadillas. Here, camp blossoms 
        into the buffet line and business center; our phones find every

outlet and our hat-smashed hair oils 
                            the vinyl chairs beneath the bustle 

display and in the pool’s chlorinated hall. Everybody shares 
the latest gossip: who’s running the cookshack, 
                             the oncoming snow, the day’s arrests. 

But I find myself hiding in the windowless orange light 
             of the Schwan’s machine room; alone 
                         to lean the spasms in my back against the glow 

of the beef stroganoff button. For the first time in a week, I take off 
              my coat. I’ve come with notebooks to grade, funds to raise for bales to keep us from the cold; but instead I scroll and I scroll: stare at blooms

of lavender lattes, friends on hikes, at bars, cooking dinner, arms 
              posed around their husbands and I never 
                                                                                 say anything to them. 

Maybe I’ll cocoon in the casino forever, dragging soggy fries through an                eternal 
              river of ketchup or I’ll drive the fourteen hours to a city where I own 

a bed. But even as the empty vein 
              of the pipeline pushes further and further, as storm-bent 
tents sing the songs of hollow shells, and my spine

forgets how to hold me: I’ll drive north

past the pastured horses, ice glittering on their eyelashes, the cars 
                            blizzarded into the ditch. Head north toward the gate 
where someone will shine a beam in my car, say go on in, welcome home. 

These leavings a privilege I want and don’t want. The night a salt shaker of            stars.