New Verses for "America the Beautiful"

The Sunday Scribblings prompt for this week is "New." For other posts with a "new" theme, click on link above or on the banner.


Have you ever heard a familiar song and suddenly realized that there was a verse that should be there, but that it was missing? These two new verses for "America the Beautiful" are in response to just such a realization on my part.

I wrote the first of these two new verses when a friend pointed out that the original inhabitants of this land were NOT the pilgrims!

This photo of Navahos at Shiprock
was found in Google images.

O beautiful for tribes whose lore
Embraced the buffalo,
Who met the pilgrims at the shore
And gave them corn to grow.

America,America!
Great spirit ease the pain
Of those displaced,
Their past erased
From hogan, woods, and plain.

"from sea to shining sea."
I photographed these Pacific waves
at our family reunion

And this was written in a burst of pure euphoria the day after Obama was elected as future president of this great land. I posted it on this blog at that time, so excuse me for running it by you once again.

O beautiful for rainbow race
for multicolored skin
for outside differences of face
Americans within.

America! America!
where every voice is heard.
We pledge to heed
each anxious need
with deed and work and word!