America the Beautiful Again, written and read by Richard Blanco.

How I've sang, oh beautiful, like a song at church with my mother, her Cuban accents

scaling up every vowel, oh beautiful, yet imperfect pitch, delicate and tuned to the

radiant beams of stained glass light, how she taught me to fix my eyes and the crucifix

as we sang our thanks to our Savior for this country that saved us, our voices, hymns

as passionate as the organ piping towards the very heavens.

How I've sang, first space, this guise, closer to those skies, while perched on my father's

sunbeam shoulders, towering above our first Fourth of July parade, how the timber is

through our bodies mingled, breathing, singing as one with the brass notes of the marching

band playing the only song he ever learned in English.

How I dared to sing it at assembly with my teenage voice cracking for I am her weight of grain

that I'd never seen nor the purple mountain majesties, but could imagine them in each verse

rising from my gut, every exclamation of praise I belted out until my throat heard,

oh, Mary, and again, oh, Mary, how I began to read Nietzsche and doubt God yet still wished

for God to shed his grace on the crown thy good with brotherhood, how I still want to

sing despite all the truth of our wars and our gunshots ringing louder than our school

bells.

Our politicians smiling lies at the mic, the deadlock of our divided voices shouting over

each other instead of singing together how I want to sing again, beautiful or not, just

to be in harmony, from sea to shining sea with the only country I know enough to know

how to sing for.

Thank you.

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