America’s Poets Carline Zonis “Of all races and eras these states with veins full of poetical stuff most need poets, and are to have the greatest, and use them the greatest...” -Walt Whitman When did we forget? When white water cut through the canyons, was there gentle persuasion, or did ferocity pave her streams, change her course? When the children march, are their footsteps any less thunderous than those that came before them Perhaps heavier, for the weight they carry hangs heavy round their necks, strains their wrists, and their feet are calloused with consistency. In me, in us, there is something to be said, creation is in our fingertips because of all that’s been destroyed Surrounding us is conductive chaos The children are global descendants, painted by their elders, washed by the acid rain Because we have all forgotten our station. Why conquerors? Why isolation? When we could live for prosperity
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