The Death of a Nation

 Our nation
Was a nation born
From a desire for freedom,
Or so I was told long ago.
Our nation was born
So that we could be 
Whoever we wanted to be.

So long as you're white,
And only like women, 
And can walk and talk easily,
And were born a man. 

Our nation
Is a nation celebrated 
Every year,
On the day Thomas Jefferson
Wrote "All men are created equal."
Not women.
Not people in general.
Only men.
And he owned slaves,
So not all men were included 
In his statement.

We talk like our past
Doesn’t indict us.
Yes, we were evil,
But we didn’t know better.
All our mistakes
Were a hundred years ago,
Just the foibles of a young nation
Still learning to walk
On its own. 

According to legend
Our nation was born
Out of the worst racism
And cruelty 
Imaginable. 
So is it true that our nation
Will only be equal
On the day it dies? 

For more patriotic poetry written by yours truly, check out So Stands She, my poem on the statue of liberty and what it means to the United States.