Kenilworth, DC

Give praise for all the city things.  Give praise for the created things.

Praise for the highways glistening with cars.  Praise for the crack pipe and for the good rolled leaf.  Praise for the sirens on the avenue and praise for the machine that shreds the cars to chunks and praise for the Christmas star on the crane by the looted Safeway.

Praise to Piney Branch and to the waters of Watts Branch.  (May they roll down like justice, like a mighty stream to the wide, wide Chesapeake.)

Sing for the joy of shrimp fried rice from the carryout, sing for greens with vinegar and for home-fried chicken and for baked foil pans of macaroni crusted with cheese.  Praise for the tiny ziploc bag and for the dirty needle.  Praise for the line of rocks to jump the stream.  Praise for the Tarzan rope to swing across.

Give thanks for the cape dress and the veil.  Give thanks for bobby socks and halter tops.  Sing of the good days, sing of the old days.  Tell of crab feasts and makeshift clubhouses, sing of virginity lost in the weeds.  Open wide your mouth and praise the Rec; the open, empty lot; the softball field.

Hallelujah for broken glass!

Hallelujah for wide-eyed lilies! 

Lift up the lotus stems, heavy with blossom.  Lift up like the osprey and the snowy egret.  Sway like the wild rice afoot with red-winged blackbirds.  Lift your feet and step like the blue heron padding through the ponds.  Take flight like the eagle who soars above the Anacostia River hills.

Now sing, you hills, and join in you monuments and government buildings.  Sing of rivers deep and wide.  Sing of hills rolling down to swamp, the marshy flats and ooze. 

Sing of anthraxed offices and blighted housing projects.  Sing of well-oiled transactions and oil slicks on lakes, sing of power and of the poor.  Sing of K Street in the daytime and sing of Quarles Street in the evening.  Sing of drug wars and rumors of killings.  Praise the gunshots in the night.

Glory to Mr. Jefferson, powdered and great.  Glory to Mr. Lincoln, tall and shot.  Glory to Ms. Kimi, wide and powerful.  Give thanks for the plantations which you now manage!  Give thanks for the fields of corn and souls!  Give thanks to the offering plate, the welfare check!  Give thanks for hogs and gardens!

Sing like the bell of the ice cream truck.  Sing acapella with four part harmony.  Sing the old shaped notes of freedom.  Dance and shout to the go-go beats.

Sing like sons and daughters of the plain people.  Sing like sons and daughters of the slaves.