Poetry Friday: "There are No Kings in America" by Aileen Cassinetto

This week, Mary Lee Hahn, at A(nother) Year of Reading, is hosting an "Independence Day Roundup of Protest and Praise for This Complicated Country We Call Home." Mary Lee shares a powerful original piece entitled "America."

I didn't get any new writing done this week, but I'm sharing a powerful and timely poem from Aileen Cassinetto, "There are no kings in America," which was first published in 2020.* I've included some excerpts here but be sure to read the whole thing. (Link below.) 

There are no kings in America
by Aileen Cassinetto

we are not that kind of country.
We are sanctuary for the hungry,
the homeless, the huddled,
held together by an idea
our immigrant fathers believed in.

....

To be an American is to
recognize the sacrifice
of the widow and the orphan;
it is to understand the weft of tent
cities expecting caravans,
and the heft of a child in a camp
not meant for children, or sitting
before a judge awaiting judgement.
What do we say to the native
whose lands we now inhabit?
What do we say to our immigrant
fathers who held certain truths
to be self-evident?

.... 

(Read the whole poem here, at Poets.org.) 

* ETA: On Cassinetto's website, she notes that she first presented this poem publicly on July 9, 2019. She writes:

On July 9, 1776, General George Washington ordered the Declaration of Independence to be read aloud to members of the Continental Army in New York. This poem, written in 2019, is a commentary on immigration, and how our actions compare with the statement adopted by the Second Continental Congress.

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