Today, on Independence Day in the US, I dream of a more inclusive America—a safe home for everyone who chooses to live here. (You with me?)
In honor of the dream, I offer you this beautiful choral piece:
#UNITEDWEDREAM
Aquí estamos.
This is where we found our home away from home.
This is where we belong.
Mother Earth, who feeds us all,
takes our roots,
their roots,
no matter how long,
how short—
she’s whispering:
this is where you belong.
R E S I S T! R E S I S T!
Pelea con diente y madre!
This is where you belong, Dreamer!
(My thanks to Tonality, composer Melissa Dunphy, and lyricist Claudia D. Hernández.)
The Gentle Nudge
Join other Rafters this week for . . .
Creatives’ Coffee (Zoom, Tomorrow, 4:00-5:30PM Central, at this link)
Poetry Pick-Me-Up (Zoom, Thursday, 12:00-1:00PM Central, at this link)
The July Show & Share (via our Chat space at this link)
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Definitely with you!
Yes! Yes!
Dependence Day by John Daniel
It would be a quieter holiday, no fireworks
or loud parades, no speeches, no salutes to any flag,
a day of staying home instead of crowding away,
a day we celebrate nothing gained in war
but what we're given—how the sun's warmth
is democratic, touching everyone,
and the rain is democratic too,
how the strongest branches in the wind
give themselves as they resist, resist
and give themselves, how birds could have no freedom
without the planet's weight to wing against,
how Earth itself could come to be
only when a whirling cloud of dust
pledged allegiance as a world
circling dependently around a star, and the star
blossomed into fire from the ash of other stars,
and once, at the dark zero of our time,
a blaze of revolutionary light
exploded out of nowhere, out of nothing,
because nothing needed the light,
as the brilliance of the light itself needs nothing.