We, this people, on a small and lonely planet
\nTraveling through casual space
\nPast aloof stars, across the way of indifferent suns
\nTo a destination where all signs tell us
\nIt is possible and imperative that we learn
\nA brave and startling truth<\/p>\n
And when we come to it
\nTo the day of peacemaking
\nWhen we release our fingers
\nFrom fists of hostility
\nAnd allow the pure air to cool our palms<\/p>\n
When we come to it
\nWhen the curtain falls on the minstrel show of hate
\nAnd faces sooted with scorn are scrubbed clean
\nWhen battlefields and coliseum
\nNo longer rake our unique and particular sons and daughters
\nUp with the bruised and bloody grass
\nTo lie in identical plots in foreign soil<\/p>\n
When the rapacious storming of the churches
\nThe screaming racket in the temples have ceased
\nWhen the pennants are waving gaily
\nWhen the banners of the world tremble
\nStoutly in the good, clean breeze<\/p>\n
When we come to it
\nWhen we let the rifles fall from our shoulders
\nAnd children dress their dolls in flags of truce
\nWhen land mines of death have been removed
\nAnd the aged can walk into evenings of peace
\nWhen religious ritual is not perfumed
\nBy the incense of burning flesh
\nAnd childhood dreams are not kicked awake
\nBy nightmares of abuse<\/p>\n
When we come to it
\nThen we will confess that not the Pyramids
\nWith their stones set in mysterious perfection
\nNor the Gardens of Babylon
\nHanging as eternal beauty
\nIn our collective memory
\nNot the Grand Canyon
\nKindled into delicious color
\nBy Western sunsets<\/p>\n
Nor the Danube, flowing its blue soul into Europe
\nNot the sacred peak of Mount Fuji
\nStretching to the Rising Sun
\nNeither Father Amazon nor Mother Mississippi who, without favor,
\nNurture all creatures in the depths and on the shores
\nThese are not the only wonders of the world<\/p>\n
When we come to it
\nWe, this people, on this minuscule and kithless globe
\nWho reach daily for the bomb, the blade and the dagger
\nYet who petition in the dark for tokens of peace
\nWe, this people on this mote of matter
\nIn whose mouths abide cankerous words
\nWhich challenge our very existence
\nYet out of those same mouths
\nCome songs of such exquisite sweetness
\nThat the heart falters in its labor
\nAnd the body is quieted into awe<\/p>\n
We, this people, on this small and drifting planet
\nWhose hands can strike with such abandon
\nThat in a twinkling, life is sapped from the living
\nYet those same hands can touch with such healing, irresistible tenderness
\nThat the haughty neck is happy to bow
\nAnd the proud back is glad to bend
\nOut of such chaos, of such contradiction
\nWe learn that we are neither devils nor divines<\/p>\n
When we come to it
\nWe, this people, on this wayward, floating body
\nCreated on this earth, of this earth
\nHave the power to fashion for this earth
\nA climate where every man and every woman
\nCan live freely without sanctimonious piety
\nWithout crippling fear<\/p>\n
When we come to it
\nWe must confess that we are the possible
\nWe are the miraculous, the true wonder of this world
\nThat is when, and only when
\nWe come to it.<\/p>\n
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