Can a nation forgive?
Or must everyone die?
Which generation
Will walk a grudge by?
Did the Jews forgive?
Did Nagasaki forget?
How can the heart become
What the mind won’t let?
Did Jesus speak to you
Or to a nation?
Did he command the soul
Or write a Constitution?
Where exceptionalism is assumed
With a mandate from God
A people destroy the ground
Where holiness did trod
It is written
An eye for an eye
But is this for Caesar
Or for you and I?
It is written
Turn the other cheek
But is this for a superpower
Or only for the weak?
Why do we cheer
The death of a man
When God’s own son
Gave us a plan?
Or did he?
Can no man believe
That which his brother
Failed to conceive?
You abdicate your wishes
Behind a closed curtain
Believing in the good
Your vote always certain
The republic gathers its sons
And its daughters
But the outcome is decided
They’ve parted the waters
The collective never yields
The individual a myth
Ancient documents pretend
What rights do you walk with?
As the national interest swells
Our destiny is manifest
The chosen many
March East and West
Civilizing savages
Extracting resources
Stealing fruit from peasants
Mitigating encumbrances
The walls pushed further out
As we play in the yard
We pray before commerce
While someone stands guard
I call for our memory
Of a man in untouchable clothing
And for the son of slaves
To bring peaceful reckoning
Beaten down over and over
Suffering the indignities of a lifetime
Laying down before charging horses
To show us power’s crime
What is the seed of change?
An atomic bomb?
A protest march?
Or a Psalm?
What have you been told?
What have you witnessed?
A miracle has occurred
And yet you are calloused
I speak to you now
As you show me your smile
Will each eye seeks its mate?
Or will you walk the first mile?
And then the next
As it was spoken
But not for Caesar
For he will never be broken
Will you walk
And accept your mandate?
Will you give another man your coat
Or will you hesitate?
Can a nation forgive?
Can you or I?
Can a newborn baby?
Or will you teach it an eye for an eye?