Pledge of Allegiance

I pledge allegiance
to this spirit
For which she stands
Fertile seeds in outstretched hands
One earth
under the sky
Revolving around the sun
Indivisible
despite the walls they build

for if we as a country decide
to etch the words
Liberty and justice for all
In a block of stone
At the base of a female statue
Shaped after a greek goddess
Representing freedom from oppression
Face her towards the ocean
As if a welcoming host
Placed in the center of Ellis Island

Then as a nation refuse to provide refuge
For immigrants seeking home
In our country

Then this carved rock shall become
A gravestone where truth and integrity
Will be buried

I pledge allegience
To a group of Mexican men
Desendents of ebony skin
Running dehydrated
through unforgiving deserts
Follying a coyote in the dark of night
Crossing a border fence
As if one had to escape into a better life

I pledge allegiance to the middle-eastern poet imprisoned behind bars
For attempting to chisel the reflection of a star with his ink filled pen
Maybe if he had decided to hate America instead of transcribing the scripture of his heart
They would have let him right;, or speak or be the songs singing within his soul

I pledge allegiance to the Palestinian teenager
Who straps explosives to her adolescent chest?
Loads a filled bus in Tel Aviv
Draped in a mix of righteous fear and survivalist dreams

Then at the moment of desperate detonation
decides to disable the bomb
When she notices
the Israeli grandmother sitting next her
wearing the same Caspian brown eyes
as her own

yet still silently vows to make sovereignty legal

I pledge allegiance to a congregation of thousands of indigenous people
Marching by foot from San Francisco to Washington DC
As if a roaming herd of noble buffaloes,
On a pilgrimage to reclaim their stolen feathers
Their grandfather’s songs, our rightful place
As deciders of our own destiny

I pledge allegiance to demilitarizing our borders,
In order to reclaim our loyalty to a global community
rather then a patriarchal nation
to this earth that births all our relations

I pledge allegiance
To a group of Zapatista grandmothers
Gathered in the rooted belly
Of the Lacondon jungle
Bandana covered faces
Stories weathered upon their hidden cheeks
Attempting to speak
For an entire old growth forest
Whose sacred medicine
And photosynthesized lungs
Are being threatened by
The sharpened blade of a loggers axe

I pledge allegiance
to a white flag raised in a storm of bullets and ballads,
to a flowing river full of drinkable water
to a mountain whose molten belly is full of stories
to a coastal pine tree whose branches befriend the wind
whose roots hold the land together
whose leaves breathe us oxygen to live on

may our newly written constitutions
be composed by poets
transcribed by musicians
edited by children
moved by dancers
and brought alive through corresponding actions

I pledge allegiance
To a president who believes
The earth to be a living, breathing,
Pulsing, heart beating mother
Whose primary purpose in office
Is to make peace with the other’
Who thinks before he speaks
And prays before he eats
who hears music when he sleeps
and loves to sing
a president who treats his children
like gifts from the ancestors
sent to mend the worlds broken wings

I pledge allegiance
To this planet
for the home she provides
On spirit
Indivisible
With Liberty and Justice
At Stake.