“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free …”
And let them have guns.
The spirit of 1776 lives.
Tho’ cities soar and sprawl across our land
And we call ourselves civilized,
Ours is yet an untamed wilderness
Of angers and savageries,
Of viral fear and cruel, untimely
dyings.
Centuries’ old necessities,
Logically amended to our Constitution,
Remain.
Beyond the “golden door”
There is no Eden.
Once upon a revolution
Liberty, sanity and guns were brothers.
Today
In our homes and on our streets,
Mid-day and mid-night
That is no longer so.
Metal muscle deals death haphazardly,
Screaming one’s right to bear arms
As if… as if
That need be so.
I am grateful
My own right to arm myself
Is far removed from wanting to
Or needing to.
But I live with a sadness
For the insanities
Liberty
In its own name, they say,
Allows.
Perhaps, in some enlightened future,
One’s need to bear arms
May be more clearly sanctioned
Than one’s right.
Then we may know
Liberty
Has come of age.