America, how I thought I knew thee well!
Land of the West, of golden gleaming hope,
Of the People’s answer to Dante’s hell;
We who with freedom and slavery cope.

America, thou mother of Thoreau,
Of Whitman, of Lincoln and MLK,
Thy womb bleeds and thy red-drenched rivers flow
Past poets, dreamers, and the KKK.

I’ve seen thy scars: fissures, faults, Civil War;
Here the ice burns, the summer forests die;
Here our brutal and hungry Eagle soars,
Her talons pure: she kills but does not lie.

I long believed thy promise, but no more!
At last thee reap what we so long have sowed.