When I was 16 and done

Cleaning out his horse stalls

Mr. Sodie Hampton said,

"Son, don't never work for less than

$1.50 an hour the rest of your life."

Momma who grew up choppin and pickin

Cotton said it a different way,

"A hard day's work deserves a

A good day's pay."

Momma also said,"You ain't any better

Than anyone else, but nobody's

Better than you either."

My Tennessee Momma also said,

"Son, your word is your bond and

A man looks after those weaker than him."

I learned as a man that children come first.

Syd and Sam taught me love

I'd never known.

We are all children of the same God

Breathed to life with the spark of

The Divine.

That's all why it ain't workin today.

We forgot all that.

We ain't all individual robots

With the strongest devouring the weakest.

And too many never worked for

Mr. Sodie Hampton and learned there's a

Floor beneath which we will not work

Indignities we will not bear

And disrespect we won't accept.

And our children deserve joy and freedom

And even skittles on a summer night

No matter their color or their clothes.

Too many of us got it ***-backwards

We make up all kind of reasons to

Hate and fight and **** and some

Even try to justify reape and ******

When Momma and Mr. Sodie Hampton said

It so different so long ago

In Tennessee and Missouri.

Peace to you
And you and you and you
May the Holy Dove descend on your being
Delivering the believing and the seeing
That we are all one
United in a patchwork quilt of sun
And moon and all those around us
Knowing that all must
Acknowledge our own peace
Depends on the peace of everyone

In the tiny hours os the morning

Long before the sun casts its

Pre-dawn gray and the east

Begins to light

You feel the oneness of us all

You hurt for the people who

Really are brothers and sisters

The people and families of Boston

And Newtown

And the people and families, victims

Of random, meaningless gun violence

Every **** day

The kids lost every day in drive-bys

And the men and women who

Try so hard to hold it all together

The families on the ramen noodles and

Baloney and peanut butter plans with

Hamburger Helper for a treat

The men and women scared of

Losing home--not just a **** house

Don't you know, the only home

Their kids ever knew

And you hurt in the tiny hours

For your people who no longer

Can make the ends meet

And you know a much bigger

Struggle calls

Our people are sick of hurtin and losin

While those who really can

Make things happen

Sleep through the night

Without a thought to us

Lots and lots to do

Woody said it right in a different

But same kind of time

This land belongs to you and me

What is in a soul?

It is all so intangible

Where we houae our passions and dreams,

Deepest anxieties and fears

Where we are most human

Where we know--or don't know

That we are part of something much bigger

Than just us

That we have an obligation to one another

And to our home the ancestors and elders

Left for us and for our kids and theirs

The soul is wbat reminds us to love mercy

And to loose the bonds of wickedness and

Deliver those who are oppressed

The soul reminds us that every

Hungry or hurtin person is the responsibility

Of us all

That's where the free market folks fail

There is no goon nor nobility in caring

Only for your own meaningless life

If separated from the whole

The soul reminds us that our meaning comes

From the struggle for the whole

The Common Good

All of us aand one aanother

Awake in the pre-dawn gray

Sleep denied, an entreaty rejected

The demons demand my

Truth of the soul not neglected

So I stare

Nowhere and everywhere

Eyes closed mind and soul

Examine this life in the brilliance of half light

Wait for truth as if something would impart

As if demons would depart