Life in New Perfectville
When my husband and I were at lunch today
I heard in my mind a soft voice say
“Why don’t we move to a land faraway
Just start all over and do nothing but play?”
Again, the soft voice spoke in my ear
And because I am old it was harder to hear.
This time some words made me stop still
They said “Let’s call the place New Perfectville.”
The first thing we need is a list of some rules
To be followed in businesses, churches, and schools.
The main one, the first one, and hardest to do
Will be that no walls separate me and you.
Old walls must come down, and the first one to go
Will be to erase all the ‘hurt’ words we know,
The words that make one person tremble in fear
Just knowing that the user of that word is near.
Those words are unpleasing to the Father Above
Who set out to make us all Beings of Love.
So into the furnace, those hurt words we send
Soon the ashes are scattered in a cool healing wind.
When those words of hatred no longer exist
We seekers of harmony go on with the list
And because all the hurt words were easy to burn
We thought of another good rule we could learn.
Let’s sit in the old campfire circle and play
An old fashioned game, that back in the day,
Was guessing whose hand touched our head in the dark
We played this at night in our yards for a lark.
While we sit in the darkness the silence is thick
But shortly we all have unraveled the trick.
Now our list has a new rule and gets a checkmark
For we are all the same color when we are in the dark.
The trick to this rule is suspend disbelief
And make no allowance to cause any grief
For in daylight all colors are going to show
And we must not permit old resentments to grow.
Rule three is another conundrum to solve
And more than one sun’s trip rise will need to revolve
To put this important new rule to the test
We must choose as our leader the ultimate best.
With the three simple rules for our New Perfectville
There will only be one final pledge to fulfill.
To honor and follow the dreams from our past
What shall we do to make sure those dreams last?
Once more I could hear that small voice in my mind
But somehow more distant, yet clearly defined
In a quick review of the rules that would guide us
Our New Perfectville must first live inside us.
No more calling names and deriding each other
Because we should see we are sister and brother
We are all one, a land built by our own
And in each of our beings our kinship was sown.
New Perfectville is our land of the free
Belonging as family, to you and to me.
No more should we battle to win a bad game
But rise above trying to relay the blame.
It now became clear that the time has arrived
And we need to pay heed how our land has survived.
We must put aside racisism, insults and hate
And mend our America before it’s too late.
