I just remembered this, which I posted last year as a comment on the old version of Cassandra Pages. And I thought I’d dust it off and set it before a larger readership than it will get stuck in the bowels of haloscan.
I love my country. But what country is it?
The one that sold its soul for world dominion,
Or the one with all those National Parks I visit?
I don’t know if I have just one opinion.
To love a Constitution seems, well, garish
Law reified, six steps removed from nature
Do we love Vermont’s snow parking laws, or cherish
Nebraska’s unicameral legislature?
Government is ugly at its best,
And ours was never best from what I hear.
The pretty words with which our myth is blest
Ring false in one’s malnourished, napalmed ear.
Perhaps “country’s” too large. Montana’s nice:
New Mexico’s about the perfect size.
I’d love Manhattan were it sanely priced.
But “country?” That’s an empire in disguise.
