The Civil War isn’t over yet.

The Crusades begun a thousand years ago

have not been won,

and when I read about another drone,

another soldier’s suicide,

another stone thrown

at a women’s head,

another prison being built to rid the streets

of anyone who might be one of them,

or smoked a joint,

or didn’t have his papers in his pocket,

I look up at the sun

and want to cry

and not feel shame for what I haven’t done,

and wish that I knew innocence again,

wish that I could sing of my allegiance,

but those words won’t come

when I know what’s being done

to keep the money coming in,

to get the oil your sunlight made

a million years ago,

the oil to keep the engines going,

poisons fields to make food grow,

spills into the oceans and our rivers

and fills the air with what will make

our children’s lives hot and hard and dry.

Oh, sun, what have we done to your green earth?

This gift we can’t explain?

I sit here in my room each dawn

to say what’s in my heart to you so bright

among the other stars and wonder if you care,

but still I speak as if these words I write

will vibrate before they vanish in the air.