It’s easy to be bleak
about America.
These days,
it’s the accepted
way to be.
But I refuse.
America is not
its president
or its police force
or its loudest voices
on the news.
America is a skin of land
that holds 331 million hearts,
and if we could see
an aerial view,
the goodness
would light up
the map.
Just today,
a teenage runner in Indiana
stopped in the middle of the race
to help an injured competitor
cross the finish line.
The landscapers in Detroit
who mow the lawns
of healthcare workers
for free.
The jazz musicians in New Orleans
who trade guns
for trumpets,
no questions asked,
and then give each person
who hands over their gun
music lessons for a year.
Bursts of kindness
fusing hearts together
every day.
And it doesn’t make me ache
for the injustice
any less.
And it doesn’t make me blind
to the hate and the fear
and the land that continues to burn
with its own fury.
It just doesn’t make me
give up
on America.
How could I?
The map is blinking again,
like a carpet of stars,
with endless examples
of humanity
and hope.