A Psalm for Selma

They've taken away the birdfeeders,
The last beautiful thing in this God-forsaken town.
Now remain only the occasional lark, 
or harsh the mockingbird, haunting the trees,
Spun in Spanish moss, taking on the likes
Of a weeping willow that greys.
And the stale, hot air, so thick 
It could be grasped by the hand or lungs.

Now that the birds have flown and passed,
Nothing drowns out the drones of industry,
The damning blasts of the freight train lines
Yet no-thing is there to manufacture,
For this city is but the ghost of its former self,
A shadow of its shadowy past.
Speckled with the salt and pepper of the earth,
Broken, separate, silently misunderstood.

But therein remains the dream,
The hope to which we hold
In the face of all-humbling hell,
That one day the birds of our youth
Will wander back into the homes and yards
To chant their chirping carols
And bring us back to ourselves,
A reminder of who we are: brothers, sisters.

Perhaps that hour, when we join
Hand-in-hand to re-sound our hymns anew,
We will forget not our broken days gone by,
But shall see that these sustain our new us
In a love greater than loathsome lore,
With a heart, one heart, to bear all things,
To believe all things, to hope all things,
To endure together whatever it is life may bring.