American Homeland Poem by S. R. Lavin

If you listen you hear
the chirping of songbirds,
and see the old life depicted
in the dilapidated sheds
and slumping barns
like majestic mastodons
from another time
when the air was
crystal clear
and you walked and swam
in the joy of simple doing.

1952 - swinging from hayloft
to hayloft, just a boy
on Kittery Bay
full of hotdogs and cola

who yearned for peace
and an end to all human suffering.

Now home in the Berkshires,
tucked in for the night –
not the rantings of a lunatic loner
but the voice of a nation
who cry out for justice
and mercy for the poor.

But remember, talk is cheap.

Whatever you want
will cost you
all that you have.