The Seven Million
Posted by Amphictyon | May 18, 2010 at 9:22AM CST
Grandfather once told about the America that was –
of unsung, un-remembered ones
Apache, Crow, Cherokee;
men and women hard as nails, soft as beaver-pelt,
whose stories went out long ago, last wisps of dying fire.
Prayed to their gods of earth and stone and wood,
clinging to pride and place
with grip like eagle’s claw:
‘Fight to the death is honor far,
far more than being herded from the land
like a lame cart-horse’.
But these were not my fathers.
Over blue expanses my fathers came,
bringing dreams from the isles of the Scot
the vine-choked hills of Spain.
Dreams of a place –a New World –
where men could work and build, and
by the sweat of their own hands and no gift
from the hands of another
a life could be made.
America.
Years of toil, of working
until the sun-baked sweat dried in night-chill
food grown in the field, and a piece of bread
sweet in the mouth, this work of human hands
and then to bed, to work another day.
America!
This place was good.
Each man a kingdom, each home a castle;
nobility of sweat, fresh tillage, a well-laid wall of stone.
Merchant and farmer, field and meadow, peace like a river
never overflowing its banks
held in smooth and quiet check
with nary a king or emperor in sight!
America.
But as the years became centuries,
the Old World came back –
like a building storm against which one prays
knowing that the prayer is in vain,
for the storm has always come.
Men without norms or nobility, looking for blood
a cutpurse’s glance, a gleam in the eye.
They wake with a plan, and a word for the day
not hoe, nor plow, nor trowel in hand.
They raise their voice: mellifluous promise made,
never kept.
America…
The world watches on: honest men and women bent
under strain and nightmare of
Banker. Broker. Consultant. Bureaucrat.
Politician.
Every farm and household cut and hacked and torn,
pressed into the shape
of human bondage.
In fine offices, laughing the while
planning conquest and plunder,
too many digits for a farmer to grasp.
Banker. Broker. Consultant. Bureaucrat.
Politician: these, too, have a dream –
to play while all the world works, to feast like kings
“from a tiny margin! Ha!”
Oh, America!
Sixty-Seven Million no longer suffer the injustice;
They stand foursquare against the lies,
and work for the dream of America that was:
each man a kingdom, each home a castle;
nobility of sweat, fresh tillage, a well-laid wall of stone...
Merchant and farmer, field and meadow, peace like a river
never overflowing its banks
held in smooth and quiet check
with nary a king or emperor in sight!
“Sixty-Seven Million no longer bend the knee to Baal?” they say,
Nontaxpayers, who fear no man but love the law
with honor in their mein, nobility
as of Apache, Crow, and Cherokee
who stood to fight.
I see the steady toil of merchant, craftsman, farmer...
whose bread is honest;
whose wine, sweet on the lips at night.
Prays to the God of heaven and earth,
clings to pride and place
with grip like eagle’s claw:
‘Fight to the death is honor far,
far more than being herded along in line
like a lame cart-horse’.
These are my people.
I need not Sixty-Seven Million, no.
If one in ten among these fabled ones,
has heart and mind and fists like those –
wisdom wrought from prayer, humility
sun-dried sweat and whistled tune,
nobility
that only working man can know, Ah!
Then these will win this land once more,
by grace of God,
from plotting plunderers whose hands
have never known an honest day,
who wrench, instead, the work
from other’s hands.
If God be on their lips (and in their hearts) and
steel is in their bones
then give me Seven Million, one in ten;
those stalwart souls will win
America Again!
© 2006 David M. Zuniga
