America's Best Idea

This poem is copyrighted by Brendan Bombaci under a

Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License

America’s Best Idea

By Brendan Muir Bombaci

The grandest of things ever I have known

Have always been found and never been owned,

Like “America’s Best Idea,” it’s said,

And, indeed, so much else tends to go to our heads.

These Edens offer freedom that we seek every day,

In our dreams, in our thoughts, our hopes and dismay.

Some don’t respect nature as the origin, the source

Of all beauty in our cultures, the designs, the force;

But those who take the time to inspire and receive

Do find that they have more than ever they believed.

In wandering from the trappings, in heeding hidden yearning

We see how far from home we’ve been, from return - our Hero’s Journey.

The confrontation is a test – a challenge to our mettle,

It is not a time to rest or a solid place to settle;

So the centers of our cities, you see, are not the goal,

They are the grounds on which we fight to be much more – to earn our stoles.

We craft structures to our greatness and send ships to outer space,

But what we always come to face with is the fact that has no age:

What we need has always been and will always ever be

Lands untrammeled by mortal men, and skies that we can breathe.

See, all our wonder, all our romance, our emotional expression,

It is vanquished - like a dancer without partner, in depression,

when our vision takes us places or gives us many things

but diminishes the innocent and wipes away what’s free.

As art imitates life, and without it there’s no reason –

We can’t forget that cultures, all, arose from fascination –

We must be strong and keep our heads, recalling sacred ground

Must be preserved, spare no expense – for it is past and future found.