“yes, you can”
they say to we, the writers,

when we are clung to writing desks
and textbook conversations as school naughts—

boys and girls who churn with knowledge in a mad pitch for
the matter of the American dream.

And through it all, this sneaks between the lines:
That dreams and matters and states are smithed by words—

Words that mold the landscape
That plough the fields
That pave the streets
That breach the wild for mankind to explore.

Do you remember the lessons?

I still remember the wheelbarrow, glazed
with rainwater, beside the white chickens…

And I still search for the farmer who
brought them together, whose footsteps cured

the chronicle of white and black,
the chapters of women and men,
the tables of hungry and over-fed,
the acts of untold races and the mix of tribes—

the history of we.

“It is writing on which we walk,” our forebears croon—

“but be prepared not to earn enough
to buy a scrappy pair of shoes.”