You have the right to remain loud.
Anything you don't say
about people being imprisoned
without due process
will be unsaid when you're locked up
for believing silence will keep you safe.
You have the right to be excellent
in your jump shot or lame
in your no-look pass
and to write an editorial
about homicide or genocide
or the need for new forms of tolerance
or cheese. You have the right to talk
to a painter about how to look
beyond the horizon, to address the ocean
as sir or madam, to peaceably assemble
an orrery or a thousand strangers
on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial
and ask the government to be better than it is.
Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment
of the whisper as the only utterance
allowed to people who believe love
is being slandered and abused.
If you cannot afford
to give up hope in a more perfect union,
I will cherish you and call you taller
than you are, like nine thousand feet tall,
like the moon in radiance and reach.
You have the right to remain in the country
if you're in the country legally
and have broken no laws, or skies, or rivers,
and anything you say
may be beautiful or stupid or pointless,
may be popular or hated or geometric
if geometry's your thing, I don't know, I don't care
to evaluate the worth of what you say,
just your right to say it
in a coffee shop or car wash
or into the ear of the open air.
If you decide to stop an autocracy,
you're American and I welcome you
to this experiment in democracy and cheeseburgers,
corporate farming and artisian whimsy,
and we'll go forward in the belief
that no one has all the answers
or questions or can openers or lathes
but that together we can get somewhere better,
if only the Grand Canyon or Muir woods
or slightly further, which is to say farther,
which is to ask, may I join you
in walking a little bit down the road?