Marching — all in step —
sleepwalking — kept
by rhythms not our own,
mesmerized by words we heard
somewhere in the past,
supposing that the chanting of them
made us good —
but good enough to last?

Marching — all in step —
sleepwalking — kept . . .
Would someone now break time,
disrupt the rhythm, halt the rhyme,
tear the blinder from our eye,
shout — “Yonder lies the pit
where we all march to die!”

Marching — all in step —
sleepwalking — kept —
chanting as we go, line by line . . .
Would someone stop — ask why
we’ve not been told the truth —
been told the lie?

We march — encased in molds;
we think the thoughts we learned
from books we read in schools.
We march — encased in molds;
we mouth the words we learned
to keep our culture’s rules.

But wait — misgivings mock us as we go,
mouthing slogans that aren’t really so.
Would someone now break time,
disrupt the rhythm, halt the rhyme,
break ranks — expose the lies!
Let the truth be known,
and let a new song be our own.