Kissing the Ground, Instead

 1
Every school day morning of my childhood,
I pledged allegiance, my hand on my heart,

waited to feel the beat.
I was alive; I could make promises.

I did not understand what the words meant
—individually or all together—

but absorbed the reverence around it,
the solemnity, my sacred duty.

2
Every morning in this autumn of my life,
I pledge allegiance to my heart,

to keep it strong in health, soft in caring.
I pledge allegiance to the lilies of the field,

and the white ginger,
to the sparrow that falls,

and the saffron finches
in the green wet grass;

I pledge allegiance to the children
who will show us the way to heaven,

to Earth who feeds us,
who rains on good and bad alike.