America The Beautiful ?

(This image is from sodahead.com.)

As we prepare to enter a new year, my friend Brian provides us with a thought-provoking bit of poetry from his website -- Beej's Poetry Corner.

The Song No Longer Rings True

The sky still blue and spacious

our fields grow golden grains

snow capped mountains 

are still viewed in placid reflecting pools

fruits and nuts are upon our trees

but as for brotherhood between the seas

the good has become harder to find

our light has dimmed

They came seeking relief from religious oppression

only to convert and pervert what they found

their freedom meant 

the abolishment of the ways of

the new world they had come to

with violence and death 

taking more land

there was no self control

no liberty

no real law other than 

might made right

for the new people did not honor their god

and were deserving of death

These were not heroes

they did not liberate the peoples of this new land

they showed no mercy

there was nothing noble or divine in their treatment

not of the peoples 

nor of the lands that they found

They had a dream 

of great alabaster cities

built them

but today

these are filled with empty dilapidated buildings

the homeless

and the violence that built them 

tears run down the cheeks 

of mothers and fathers losing their sons and daughters

tears are shed by the victims

of the religious extremism that was seeded in those early times

How can we continue to sing America The Beautiful?