And We Wait

And We Wait

By: Shane Phipps

America was a great idea

so are utopias

Plans are sound

but they are ephemeral

like the paper on which they are written

Have you seen the Declaration of Independence lately?

It’s so fragile that it can barely be read

as fragile as the concepts written in its preamble

The Constitution is fragile, too

When the Bill of Rights was added to it,

it was as solid and potentially eternal as anything man has yet created

but it was fragile still

because words are only as good as the people who read them

ideas only as sound as the people who hear them

Great ideas are concocted by fragile and flawed men,

products of their times,

who know that they will never live up to their own standards,

but hope that future generations will…

and still we wait

There has never been a utopia that lasted

The framework always seems solid

but it needs people to fill it out

people are greedy

greed kills utopias

What will become of America?

That’s a question that is in the hands of the young

The old have been compromised by greed

We have added to the fragility…

and still we wait

We wait in the prisons

We wait in the streets

We wait in the churches

We wait at the border

We wait at the hospitals

We wait at the clinics

We wait under the rainbow

And we wait

And we wait

And we wait