Hello, there. You don’t know me,But I’ve struggled to extend to youRegard you have not thought to grant to meAnd I have failed.I’ve tried to think of all of you as realTo imagine that like me you love the soil,Would die for your children,That at night with your love your heart lifts upGreat wings and soars o’erWorlds that welcome itBut I have failed.And you have heard the funeral march,The portly tuba’s oom-pah-pah,The trumpet’s dirge, the flute’s alarm,You too have heard him cry, Allah!Allah! Allah! Allah! Allah!The Afghan boy with the severed arm.You’ve heard and gone on harming.I’ve tried to understandBut I have failed. I’ve tried to contact you,To meet with you, to get a chance toShare my fears with you,To hear your fears,To work together for good,To give you one more chance to put things right,To not shore up your crimes with my resistance heyI failed.So why do I still  believe that somewhere deep inside you, you are righteousThat stubborn in your hearts lives onA longing for a villageOn a hillside, near a valley, by an ocean,A village in the raw salt wind,Beside a forest,Flanked with streams and trees,A place of mud and meadows,A place that smells of leather, hay, green wood,Fresh bread, strong beasts, and soup,A place where one must work at times(And too, at times, must not),A village full of friends and only good ones,Where no one knows a blow,Or slights the blessed air wherein she lives.The sweetness of your yearningIs your curse.You blast it with coins and shells.See both now lying spent and sinking fastInto your largest captive’s wounded flesh.Your fathers dreamed this village before youWhile living at the feet of manic giants(Giants who burned villages).In new lands you found villages of friendsAnd with infected breathDestroyed them all.And later on, in Cameroon, Chiapas, East Timor such villages,Those ancient royal sites that you unselved!There will be many villages again,In crook of bended knee and folded armOf the bones of that behemoth once hailed great.Be silent now, be derring-do.Be fearless, b'ys,And dream your village true.