What of our dark American tome
can we read to our children?
Will they sleep to slave-cries
and tear-gas?
Will they someday play the game
cops and hippies?
Will they understand words like
"peace" or "love"?
Or will they become funny catchphrases
of a bygone era?
Will their culture be hewn of
plastics and contracts
or the red-brown earth?
Will justice become a name and
no longer an idea?