America. To Love Again

I have felt your cactus edge
as my forefathers did
oh wilderness we did not tame within

when to our shame we left for ourselves
the honeyed shade
while those we called our slaves

bore for three hundred years
the heat of the sun.
when will the wilderness leave us

who could not leave for them
what God himself endowed.
how can we find the way out Christ

who claimed liberty only for ourselves.
it was not ours to give what God had given
to all men

no magnanimity why pretend
even at Lincoln's dearest hand
who has the power to grant what

God already did.
only say the burglars gave back
the liberty they stole bur grudgingly.

it grows old, the territories expand
and sorrow grows because we do not own
what we did.

only at the Cross may we kneel down
and pray God will restore to the suffering men of yore
that we condemned and to their cherished children without end

all that we locusts stole
and through our tears
cry mercy, mercy upon us Lord

who caused such misery
for those you loved
and give us grace

to love again.

mary angela douglas 28 february 2019