Transcript

I’m Major Jackson and this is The Slowdown.

On a Saturday morning group Zoom call, I wore my Philadelphia Phillies cap. A friend almost choked on his coffee, confusing my red hat for a MAGA hat. It made for a funny exchange, where I unapologetically claimed my belief in the ideals of America, but, no . . . I am a different kind of patriot. America is defined by its belief in equality, freedom, liberty, opportunity, and justice, but maybe even more by its betrayal of those principles and then its struggle to recommit to values we hold self-evident.

Like the speaker in today’s poem, I possess a perennial hope. America, someday, will fully claim without rancor the rich humanity that is between its shores. Meanwhile, we need accountable poems that contain our promise, that is binding and loving.

I Am Waiting
by Lawrence Ferlinghetti

I am waiting for my case to come up
and I am waiting
for a rebirth of wonder
and I am waiting for someone 
to really discover America
and wail
and I am waiting 
for the discovery
of a new symbolic western frontier
and I am waiting
for the American Eagle 
to really spread its wings
and straighten up and fly right
and I am waiting
for the Age of Anxiety 
to drop dead
and I am waiting
for the war to be fought
which will make the world safe
for anarchy
and I am waiting 
for the final withering away
of all governments
and I am perpetually awaiting
a rebirth of wonder

I am waiting for the Second Coming
and I am waiting
for a religious revival
to sweep thru the state of Arizona
and I am waiting
for the Grapes of Wrath to be stored
and I am waiting 
for them to prove
that God is really American
and I am waiting 
to see God on television
piped onto church altars
if only they can find
the right channel
to tune in on
and I am waiting
for the Last Supper to be served again
with a strange new appetizer
and I am perpetually awaiting
a rebirth of wonder

I am waiting for my number to be called
and I am waiting
for the Salvation Army to take over
and I am waiting 
for the meek to be blessed
and inherit the earth
without taxes
and I am waiting 
for forests and animals
to reclaim the earth as theirs 
and I am waiting
for a way to be devised 
to destroy all nationalisms 
without killing anybody
and I am waiting
for linnets and planets to fall like rain
and I am waiting for lovers and weepers
to lie down together again
in a new rebirth of wonder

I am waiting for the Great Divide to be crossed
and I am anxiously waiting
for the secret of eternal life to be discovered 
by an obscure general practitioner
and I am waiting
for the storms of life
to be over
and I am waiting 
to set sail for happiness
and I am waiting 
for a reconstructed Mayflower
to reach America 
with its picture story and tv rights
sold in advance to the natives
and I am waiting 
for the lost music to sound again
in the Lost Continent
in a new rebirth of wonder

I am waiting for the day
that maketh all things clear
and I am awaiting retribution
for what America did 
to Tom Sawyer 
and I am waiting
for Alice in Wonderland
to retransmit to me
her total dream of innocence
and I am waiting 
for Childe Roland to come
to the final darkest tower
and I am waiting 
for Aphrodite 
to grow live arms 
at a final disarmament conference
in a new rebirth of wonder

I am waiting 
to get some intimations
of immortality
by recollecting my early childhood
and I am waiting
for the green mornings to come again
youth’s dumb green fields come back again
and I am waiting 
for some strains of unpremeditated art
to shake my typewriter
and I am waiting to write
the great indelible poem
and I am waiting
for the last long careless rapture
and I am perpetually waiting
for the fleeing lovers on the Grecian Urn
to catch each other up at last
and embrace
and I am awaiting
perpetually and forever
a renaissance of wonder

“I Am Waiting” by Lawrence Ferlinghetti from A CONEY ISLAND OF THE MIND © 1958 Lawrence Ferlinghetti. Used by permission of New Directions Publishing.