Vastlands of innocence (for July 4)

© Pip Wilson www.wilsonsalmanac.com, 2002 - ’10

"We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness."
United States Declaration of Independence

"O beautiful, for spacious skies,
For amber waves of grain,
For purple mountain majesties
Above the fruited plain!
America! America! God shed His grace on thee,
And crown thy good with brotherhood, from sea to shining sea ..."
Katharine Lee Bates, 1904

In the vastlands of innocence,
Liberty and Justice
sang to a southland and we heard the call.
We are torn, we’re all born on the Fourth of July.
Purple mountain majesty washed over all
Australia’s red rocks and her blue mountain pall.

O vastlands of innocence,
manifest destiny,
great people, just people, people just the same.
They pulled down their king for a trivial thing,
and raised up another who sullied their name.
O beautiful, for spacious skies and Richard Nixon’s shame.

In the vastlands of innocence,
in the wide dreaming,
mansions of marble and motels of mud.
We marvel and wonder when we hear distant thunder,
will it bring rains of plenty, or does it speak flood?
Jefferson, Franklin, or movies of blood?

O the vastlands of innocence,
Swaggart and Leary,
they send us provisions at our own behest.
Marlboro and medicine, Manson and Edison,
they ship us their best but then ship us the rest.
O would that their captains would heed our request!

In the vastlands of innocence,
by the blue harbour,
‘W’ dared and he ventured to touch
on his favourite oration, The World’s Greatest Nation.
Sweet Jesus forgive him, he ain’t travelled much,
and vanity in vain, isn’t vanity as such.

The vastlands of innocence,
Fonzie and Whitman,
adored in dark theatres and the rockets’ red glare,
we never will hate them, condemn or berate them
and part of our hearts is in their love affair.
But we must implore that the rumours of war
will wither like whispers in yesterday’s air,
like the whimpers of babies, like Mary’s last prayer.
The blood-spangled banner of hunger’s unfurled –
let the vastlands still sing the Pursuits, for the World.