Poetry for the Nation

On this Independence Day, I need something in between.  So I was excited to discover www.lovesexecutiveorder.com where a poem will be posted every week during Donald Trump’s presidency.  Matthew Lippman, the editor and founder of the site, wrote this week’s poem–exactly what I needed to read today.

A United States of America Poem
by Matthew Lippman

The United States is still here.
That’s why you have to go kiss your kids before they head out to the school bus.
That is why you have to go out to the dead tree,
cut it down,
rip up the stump,
plant a new tree,
maybe a Japanese Maple
because the Japanese Maple is red
and America is still here.
It’s in the bedroom, under the bed,
next to the plastic bin with all the summer tee shirts,
the blue one with ponies on it,
the same ponies that run and up down hills in West Virginia and Cold Springs, NY,
the ones you rode as a kid
when the air smelled of sweet lilac and burgundy autumn.
You fell off of one once,
landed on America, and America picked you up
like a grandfather who still had his strength,
put you on his knee,
and rubbed your cheeks to make you feel new again.
That America.
It’s still here in the ignition of the car,
you’ve just got to go find the keys and fire her up,
4 cylinders or 6, it does not matter.
It doesn’t matter that the mudslide in Big Sur
which crushed Highway One
crushed Highway One,
you can still get America going again,
drive over the stones and smashed trees to the other side
where the ocean goes on forever,
where America says hello in waves and sea glass
and hints at revolution.
You know that revolution,
the one that means well for the guy at the farm-stand
and the gal in the office with the big windows,
the revolution of a man with no home
and the woman with no food
that still believes in the belly of the day,
that there is a word called yes, which will lead her to a door
and that she can,
with her last ounce of strength,
turn the knob and walk through.
It’s that America that is still here and it lives in your heart.
The one that beats so strong you have to kiss your kids
before they head out for school with the lunchboxes and lunch money
and provided lunch service—the apples, the apple juice,
the turkey sandwiches on wheat bread
with the crust cut off.
It’s an America for today, the most necessary today,
where Georgia and New York, Vermont and California and Idaho and Paris, Texas
have all gotten together like old friends reunited,
sitting at the river on cotton blankets
not talking.
Not even listening.
Just being united states under one sky.
It’s blue. It’s not red or white.
It’s a blue sky
and it’s here where it has always been.
You have to believe this.
You have to go outside right now and find it.
It’s easy.
Just look up.

If you need to read more poetry of resistance, visit www.lovesexecutiveorder.com and click subscribe to receive a weekly poem in your inbox.