A poetic celebration on emerging from the cover of our collective shame and raising our eyes and hearts to a New America and new connection with the rest of the waiting world.

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Tomorrow I will walk through foreign lands without shame.

I will meet the eyes of other human beings in new openness.

We will share what different lands and cultures have given us.

We will learn what can be realized eye to eye and heart to heart.

They will, perhaps slowly at first, begin again to trust.

I can already see it in their eyes as they open to me

To my culture, my country, my people, my language, my look.

We will find and repair that easy delight in differences and sameness

That has always greeted me in far off lands.

And I will walk through foreign lands tomorrow without shame

Carrying the pride we used to feel when our world was fresh,

Celebrating our eager, bounding puppy called 'America' again.

And I will trust that wherever I go, I will be well met - tomorrow.

Please don't silence me tonight with predictable analyses of doom.

Tonight I am deep within the experience of rebirth and wonder

As I move with my country to cast off the rightful hatred and fear

That the world has felt toward us, in our decade of despicable atrocity.

 Please don't challenge my optimism with socio-politico, religious, genderist cultural complaints tonight.

For I want to feel America's new hope that is shining forth so bravely.

I want to spend a moment in these horrific times and fears

To roll in the clover of a new spring day of clear beginnings.

Listen! It may be real. It may be really happening.

And maybe it is hard to cast off years of thickened armor

To come out from under rocks and emotional foxholes

But I know that if hope lives at all, to have hope in anything

We must let go of our conditioning of fear and shame

And we must come out into the sun together

And try to leave behind he terror that we have lived.

Just walk away and bear the karma we will have to face

When America comes out and we are all set free

From a decade of guilt and faux self-righteousness.

I repeat the words to myself as I walk:

"Tomorrow I will walk through foreign lands without shame.

I will meet the eyes of other human beings in new openness.

We will share what different lands and cultures have given us.

We will learn what can be realized eye to eye and heart to heart."

It is a simple resolve.

 

I try to believe it.

 

Can you?

Is it really finally time?

Authors Bio:
Jai Daemion (MS, MEd couns) explores a meta-perspective that integrates realms of psychotherapy, psychophysical integration and the study of culture and consciousness, using eastern-western and inner-outer tools. Still holding Vision for the power of global communication, family and community, Jai works (often without perceivable effect) to help this fine planet keep breathing a little longer, despite humankind's highly questionable intentions.