Dear America by Chelan Harkin
In this time of tremendous change
Where we are invited to bend instead of break,
Respond instead of react,
Create instead of collapse,
Let us deepen our pledge.
Rise with me,
Put your hand on your heart
And together let us say,
I pledge allegiance
That our mother tongue is kinship
And our dialect is decency
I pledge allegiance
To a goodness that has no polarity
And a light that knows no opposite
May we pledge allegiance
To no longer hemming our light
Or corseting our power
I pledge allegiance
To the breaking of every glass ceiling
That once held possibility inside
I pledge
To crown Thy good
With sister and brotherhood
From sea to shining sea.
America, let us pledge allegiance
To writing new stories of kinship,
Of gentleness and power coexisting,
About the great courage
It takes to love
Let us pledge our commitment
To the grand journey
Of entering the bravest
Frontier yet—
Of finally opening our hearts
To each other
May we pledge to be free
From the limiting chains of cross-party
Antagonism—
We don’t have time to waste our valuable
Resources on this,
We have a glorious future to create.
May we pledge to remember we have choice
About where to point our tremendous power
May we pledge
To sign the treaty that returns all people
To the native land of their rightful dignity.
May we pledge to remember our praise
For our nation’s great rivers and forests
And mountains and to be their caretakers
May we pledge
To be a beneficial influence
As our short lives walk this soft earth.
May we pledge to remember
We are all working arduously, nobly, fumblingly
And with heroic resilience to rise and rise again,
To come closer to the best of ourselves
May we pledge to remember
That anything that hopes
To attain greatness
Is always rooted in love.
May we pledge that before we pull
From the arsenal of divisive ideas
And before opinions line up like cavalry
To ask if there is a way beyond war
May we pledge to not having to know everything
And to commit to participating in a nation
Open to learning and relearning together
May we pledge allegiance to our true freedom,
Freedom to break old chains of superiority
And sing the anthem of the land of the truly free
That is one
Of unity in diversity—
A unity that rather than be threatened
By its diversity,
Knows it is stronger
And healthier for it.
Let us pledge
To stand together in knowing
We can re-write
Ancient, ignorant stories
That made us violent beasts
Instead of soaring eagles
Let us pledge our devoti0n
To the true land of the free,
To the borderless birthplace
Deep in our chest
Where beauty again and again
Takes her first breathe.
America no matter how far we are
From where we are aiming to go
Why not pledge to look at it differently,
Why not say,
“I am light, building a kingdom of myself.”
America, let us pledge
To put our hearts together
And consider:
How beautiful
Dare we make
This world?
Chelan Harkin, author of The Prophetess, The Return of The Prophet from The Voice of The Divine Feminine. Pre-order on Amazon now at https://amzn.to/4dp79m