The Country I Love

has many colors and foods
and musics and ways of using words

in many tongues like the word

Bulbancha  that the Choctaw people

used to describe New Orleans.

I love the poets who performed

last night in the Mission

and all the street murals

that haven’t been painted over.
I love books and writers

and honest reporters.
And find me anyone

who doesn’t love a library
or a letter or a way to vote
by mail or a public park
or a road without potholes

or clean drinking water and a hospital

where they can go in an emergency

when they’re broke. 

And who doesn’t feel better 

knowing they’ve helped feed

a starving child or fend off Ebola.

I love learning history and being challenged
to think and all my teachers who gave me

their time and taught me how.

I love women’s studies and black studies

and coming clean with ceded lands

and seeds saved and shared. I love

the abundance of berries and birds

and the oceans stocked with fish

and how happy people are

when they’re out with poles

or in a community garden.

I love that anyone can love

who they love and let their body be

whatever they know it is.
I love knowing about the WPA

projects, the stone paths and buildings

built by immigrants and how we will always be

a melting pot with our strength in the threads

that hold us together so we can’t be

pulled apart.  And how we were raised

with the speeches of MLK and JFK

and FDR and how never again

would we have to hide under our desks

from the threat of nuclear weapons,

the fear of a cold war or another holocaust. 

Or the return of southern slavery.

We’d always be part of a greater union 

and could always do better. 

I love how we don’t have to wait

to get our words published.

All of us can share what we have,

free as mutual aid and air,

contagious as a baby’s smile.