AMERICAN VALENTI NE
 
William Radice
 
E pluribus unum.  The aim of this land
            Is to fashion One out of Many
It’s done by loving this bold new life,
            This future more than any
The Old World offered to those who left:
            And still the dream lives on –
The freedom of freeways, the harvest of oil,
            Even if now have gone
Plantations and bison, and traveling West
            Means finding on-line or in space

The frontiers and conquests, the wealth and the pride
            That weld this American race
And that’s what’s inspiring: all that divides
            Can cease, with sufficient good will,
Since people uprooted, families strewn

          Share common humanity still;
And though this country’s history spawned

          Shameful oppression and hate,
Her constitution has weeded them out –
            And shown it is never too late
To extract a peace from the bleakest of wars,
            A hope from lives torn apart,
For Oneness is found not in color or creed
            But in warmth of the human heart.
And this is the song I send you today
            By a medium here discovered:
Divisions can grow, as in the Old World,
            Yet love can be recovered;
And prairies on which old hates were sunk

            Can now, through the internet,
Be the birthright of all; and freedoms won
            By those who strove to forget
The past by building a New World here
            Can be forged in the Old World too,
If we look in our hearts, discard our hurts,
            And love one another anew.
E pluribus unum.  It’s there on their coins.

            To see it one day engraved

On the hearts of all, in each family and land,
            So that what this land has braved
Is tried universally: this is the real
            Resplendent American dream.
Crazy?  No more than St Valentine’s Day
            At other times might seem.
For being now here, I understand
            That if you want to define
What America is, you could do worse
            Than say she’s a Valentine –
THE BIGGEST AND BEST, as mine is now,
            As I click on the email ‘send’,
To those who are Many, but in my heart
            Are mine and One without end!
 

                                     Houston, 2004
 
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