Freedom

Lawn cluttered and dead
     or never planted at all
No one bothers to mend the broken down walls
Round broken down buildings
     broken down cars and pickups and people
Bars, restaurant, some stores
One lone church steeple.

Garbage and empties in street and gutter
Broken window and door
     there a smashed shutter
On what once was a store but now was just proof
     of all the chances that are
     here for the youth
     of the town and the tribe
Once proud and strong
Now punished forever for not being wrong.

Alcohol and drugs
     the death of the culture
Violence and anger is all that we nurture
Where children are starving and children are dead
     from putting a gun to their twelve year-old head
Or pregnant at thirteen
Alcoholic at twelve
In prison by twenty for making themselves
     highly unwanted
     by society at large
That group of gorillas
     with spears by the doors.

People without hope
     some without anger
The fact and the shame is just that the danger
Is that we'll succeed
     in destroying these people
Whose land we once "freed"
And gave that church steeple.