Untitled

Rebecca Farnum
Third Year Undergraduate, Michigan State University
Participant in GBCS Seminar Spring Break 2011

So many people climb up my stairs
Ride up my elevators
To see DC as I do
To see the city in its splendor
From my heights they look to the White House, the Capitol, the Potomac
They revel in the stone glory of their national home
But they don't see all that I see
From my heights I see the city
The people
The life that is DC
I see the White House, the Capitol Building, the other monuments
But they are but a blip on the radar
Most of my sight, most of my city
Is composed of people
Living, working
Loving, dying
People whose only crime is to live in a city without representation
People who come to the capitol of freedom and are rejected
People who walk past buildings with the words "Equality" and "Justice" every day
But there is no justice
The is no equality
There is only hope
Hope that one day the land of the free will live in freedom
For all
For mothers and children and brothers and uncles
For white and black and rich and poor
For the immigrants who came here illegally and the immigrants who came before there was a law to break
For the working poor and the unworking rich
I see people
Sharing food, offering shelter
Telling stories, laughing together
I see people.
As the many people of this nation look through my high windows,
I see them. I hear them.
And I see and hear the people they have failed to see and hear.
I watch over this city, this people
And I wish them well. I wish them hope.
I wish them freedom.