America

If you think you can put your hands on it

Read it to me or

Run it up the flag pole

Then you don’t have it

If you think you can find it with a gun

Then I hope you never do

If you think it’s fallen down from above

Like manna from heaven

Fully formed and ready to sustain us

Then you haven’t been in the kitchen yet and

I doubt whether you’ll be of much help if you ever make it there

If you think it’s that warm feeling you get in your chest

When you sing one of those songs

I’d like you to be right

I’d like to be there with you

One voice among many

Singing

Screaming

Dancing

Hands in the air

Eyes closed

Held in the cacophany

For always and ever

But I know I’d only last an hour or so

Before I’d want to

Listen to something else or

Nothing at all

Before I’d want to open my eyes and

Look for it somewhere else

If you think it can be wrestled to the ground

Bestowed from above

Discovered only in the faces and beliefs of some people

Measured

Dissected

Purified or

Who knows what else

Then I know that you’re wrong

Because

You think the fact that everyone is looking for it

Means that it can be found