I

Fire in the sky—a celestial rain of colors bursts
Shooting into space from a mountain of faces.
The stars do not know the reason of bombardment
Is the signing of a piece of paper by fifty-six men who
Long ago pushed up daisies fighting a war
Between a mother and her rebellious child across the ocean.

But the faces do, and they say that
we are free to shoot our toy rockets into space and
we are free to carve our likenesses in stone.
This is freedom, say the faces:
Carving our noses, ears, lips, foreheads,
cheeks, jaws, and eyes in stone.

II

A marching band, a drumbeat beating out
a yes and no, a slow one-two-three-four.
Kids on bikes with streamers, car horns blairing,
People shouting, laughing, running,
dreaming, sleeping, eating—celebrating.
Hotdots at a stand for a dollar.
Why a dollar? A dollar’s what Uncle Sam said. It is so.

A little speech by a big fat man in a suit and tie
about the cost of shoting rockets
From a mountain with faces and
Selling hotdogs at hotdog stands.
This is freedom, says the big fat man:
shooting rockets to the stars and
eating dollar hotdogs sold at stands on the corner.

III

To open our eyes in a birthing room,
Staring up at fluorescent light bulbs.
Brought into the world by someone payed an hourly wage,
Who will buy a steak dinner with his wages.

To go to school and graduate, to try on new identities
New names, new friends. To go to school again,
To get an hourly wage and buy steak dinners.
Then graduate again, and maybe even do it once or twice again.

To get a good enough job to send the kids
To school to try on new identities, and go
to the Carribean during the summer—

To save enough to buy a comfortable end to our lives,
Playing golf on the weekends and having the kids over for holidays.
To be burried in a little bit of earth under a tall tree for eternity,
To have our name, if not our face, carved in stone
and have flowers sent courtesy of mortuary trust—

This is freedom, says the name in stone:
To have a name and two dates writ in stone and erected
By the corner where dollar hotdogs are sold and where
Kids ride their bikes with streamers
Under the gaze of the mountains with faces.