A Prayer for My People

That one day

we will wish

to be nothing more

than what we are.

That we will see

within ourselves

the liberation of nations, of concrete.

That we will understand

the inevitability

in the lines of our hands.

There is a war raging in our backyard

With it my sister's spirit burns

That the fire of my sister's spirit

will consume our enemies

& burn our streets clean.

There's a system of mangled necks

Whose heads speak with oracle tongues

That we should learn to walk

with wounded feet

That our eyes must be liberated

from their granite

That our hands re-root themselves

from the pools of acid rain

There's a river forming in the bureaucrat's head

Its water made from rusted milk

That we may understand this false constructed world & know:

Holy things

Do not die!

Source: Somewhere Else (Coffee House Press, www.coffeehousepress.org, 2005)