Wanderers often ponder in the redwoods.
Winter chills the rivers in Alaska.
Bravery ended slavery down the railroad.
Poets write their sonnets about the plains.
Deliver me, Ole’ Liberty’s Pennsylvania.
Take me back to Eden once again.
I can see the city’s bright, white glowing.
We seem to be freedom’s only friend.
A song rang through the pines in Carolina.
I can hear it soft when I close my eyes.
They’re singing country music down in Nashville.
The blue and gold sunset paints the sky.
The artist had a dream called independence
We reaped the fruits from our very soil.
There’s apples in our orchards fresh like water
We work as one and never seem to toil.
Where, but here can you see such beauty,
Oceans foaming, washing on the beach.
The tides are turning, sweeping in a windstorm,
A change is gunna come right at our feet.
We look down the barrel at our neighbor,
Because he landed late and traveled far.
I don’t know why I say the things I’m sayin’
But I say them anyway to raise the bar.
I’m thankful for the folks that serve our country,
Though I wish their leather boots could rest at home.
They make their guns for a boy to carry,
His blood as interest on an open loan.
What to do with our piles of money,
That trickles down to everyone but the poor.
Throw them out and leave them on the doorstep.
Maybe we could use them to fight the war.
We traffic our daughters down the highway
We throw them out when we’ve had our fill.
We’re sick and sad and take it out on children
Untimely truth, a jagged little pill.
God fearing, apple-pie-americans
Claim to love the Lord, a hidden face.
I can see a day through all the hatred
When arm and arm we sing Amazing Grace.
Tyler Strittmatter 