O Camden, my Camden,
how the years have
held you down and
kept you from the
mighty growth you
knew before so well.
Your noble majesty
and steady invincibility
are gone on the lacquered
decking of the last
ship to be built
on the murky shores
of your Del-a-ware.
Nine square miles now
stand in a deep and
epic want; unable
to be more than
the nation’s
lowest rung of poverty
and highest rung of crime –
in the eyes of
oh so many.
How has this sad
oppression
reared its manifold
and ugly heads?
Why does
mankind test
its ability to choke
the better angels
of our nature;
crushing
the diamond
souls
of our brothers
into dust that
is trampled
underfoot?
O Camden, my Camden,
where is the longitude
of our once-held greatness?
How have we misplaced
the latitude of
Whitman’s “City of Friends”?
A child cries
into endless space –
hungry and poor;
a young man
bleeds into
the cavernous abyss –
shot by a friend.
O Camden, my Camden,
how lost the spirit
of ingenuity; and, how
discovered the textures
of decay. Doorframes
burnt and fallen; lintels
cracked and crumbled
barring entrance and
escape. How once we
stood upon these stoops
in pride. How once our frame
and stature stood so tall.
And still, the city
teems with endless
neighborhoods of love
that long to have
the resources to
rebuild. Neighbor stands
with neighbor and asks
for a day to become
great again.
Who will
break the shackles of
urban pain?
Who cares these days;
who cares to raise the hope
of even one of Camden’s
youth? Who dares these
days; who dares to knock
down the barriers of
inequality and despair?
O Camden, my Camden,
what language shall I use
to bring attention to
the barrenness of your
corners? What paint could
I mix in ochre shades
and colors to brush
attention into council
chambers and human
rights debates?
I would plant you
full of trees again;
and, build bee hives
throughout your streets;
that a greening would
feed the eyes of promise
and that innovation would
pollinate your future days.
May trees line
your corridors of
commerce, may pollen
color the dancing
in your streets and
honey sweeten all
the hearts of those that
are marking a day
of a new invincibility.
O Camden, my Camden,
how we must recreate and
walk the river path together,
pounding tenderness and
human kindness back into
our soil and back into
the bottom-line of
corporate expansion and
incentives.
The eyes
of so many
look up to see the day
when their lives
will be raised up and
out of the shadow of what this
City has become.
ALL of your greatness –
ALL OF IT –
is in the eyes of your
children. They long to
weave their tears together
into a tapestry of loving
warmth and comfort.
O Camden, my Camden,
it is time we let go of the
disparate pieces of ourselves
and lean into and invest
in the joyful good that is
rising from our soil;
from our hearts. Plant
praise in the ears of all
the young. Establish
resources for the houses of
faith. Fill schools with
art and an intoxicatingly
innovative revolutions
of the mind. Show support
for programs of promise.
Water the souls of those
parched in good doing.
Find them, find all of
the children who bring love
down on this City and
let them breathe – even if for
one moment – a sigh that says
they know they will rise up;
they know they have been heard;
they know that they are loved.
O Camden, my Camden,
we are not enemies here,
gathered together on this
small nine miles of soil.
We must set all men to
be friends. We must strengthen
our bonds of affection. We must
let swell the mystic chords of
our memory. We must let rise
the jobs upon our shores.
I will stand atop what
already exists here as a
City of Friends. I will fight
the attacks of the rest.
I will establish – in me –
that quality of robust love,
that it may seep every crevice
of this garden of life and make
it invincible again. It shall
be more than just a dream,
you dreamed, Walt. I will
learn to make it so. WE will
learn to make it so.
O Camden, my Camden
be born anew on the dust
of words from Lincoln’s
mouth and Whitman’s
pen – and all we have
come to know
since then –
to be true.
Let not the past
have come to be
in vain. Look for the
fragile infant bird
of change to rise
up from the ashes of
our discontent and the
dust of their very words.
“But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
Abraham Lincoln
The Gettysburg Address
November 19, 1863
“I DREAM'D in a dream, I saw a city invincible to the
attacks of the whole of the rest of the earth;
I dream'd that was the new City of Friends;
Nothing was greater there than the quality of robust
love—it led the rest;
It was seen every hour in the actions of the men of
that city,
And in all their looks and words.”
Walt Whitman
“I Dreamed In a Dream”, Leaves of Grass
how the years have
held you down and
kept you from the
mighty growth you
knew before so well.
Your noble majesty
and steady invincibility
are gone on the lacquered
decking of the last
ship to be built
on the murky shores
of your Del-a-ware.
Nine square miles now
stand in a deep and
epic want; unable
to be more than
the nation’s
lowest rung of poverty
and highest rung of crime –
in the eyes of
oh so many.
How has this sad
oppression
reared its manifold
and ugly heads?
Why does
mankind test
its ability to choke
the better angels
of our nature;
crushing
the diamond
souls
of our brothers
into dust that
is trampled
underfoot?
O Camden, my Camden,
where is the longitude
of our once-held greatness?
How have we misplaced
the latitude of
Whitman’s “City of Friends”?
A child cries
into endless space –
hungry and poor;
a young man
bleeds into
the cavernous abyss –
shot by a friend.
O Camden, my Camden,
how lost the spirit
of ingenuity; and, how
discovered the textures
of decay. Doorframes
burnt and fallen; lintels
cracked and crumbled
barring entrance and
escape. How once we
stood upon these stoops
in pride. How once our frame
and stature stood so tall.
And still, the city
teems with endless
neighborhoods of love
that long to have
the resources to
rebuild. Neighbor stands
with neighbor and asks
for a day to become
great again.
Who will
break the shackles of
urban pain?
Who cares these days;
who cares to raise the hope
of even one of Camden’s
youth? Who dares these
days; who dares to knock
down the barriers of
inequality and despair?
O Camden, my Camden,
what language shall I use
to bring attention to
the barrenness of your
corners? What paint could
I mix in ochre shades
and colors to brush
attention into council
chambers and human
rights debates?
I would plant you
full of trees again;
and, build bee hives
throughout your streets;
that a greening would
feed the eyes of promise
and that innovation would
pollinate your future days.
May trees line
your corridors of
commerce, may pollen
color the dancing
in your streets and
honey sweeten all
the hearts of those that
are marking a day
of a new invincibility.
O Camden, my Camden,
how we must recreate and
walk the river path together,
pounding tenderness and
human kindness back into
our soil and back into
the bottom-line of
corporate expansion and
incentives.
The eyes
of so many
look up to see the day
when their lives
will be raised up and
out of the shadow of what this
City has become.
ALL of your greatness –
ALL OF IT –
is in the eyes of your
children. They long to
weave their tears together
into a tapestry of loving
warmth and comfort.
O Camden, my Camden,
it is time we let go of the
disparate pieces of ourselves
and lean into and invest
in the joyful good that is
rising from our soil;
from our hearts. Plant
praise in the ears of all
the young. Establish
resources for the houses of
faith. Fill schools with
art and an intoxicatingly
innovative revolutions
of the mind. Show support
for programs of promise.
Water the souls of those
parched in good doing.
Find them, find all of
the children who bring love
down on this City and
let them breathe – even if for
one moment – a sigh that says
they know they will rise up;
they know they have been heard;
they know that they are loved.
O Camden, my Camden,
we are not enemies here,
gathered together on this
small nine miles of soil.
We must set all men to
be friends. We must strengthen
our bonds of affection. We must
let swell the mystic chords of
our memory. We must let rise
the jobs upon our shores.
I will stand atop what
already exists here as a
City of Friends. I will fight
the attacks of the rest.
I will establish – in me –
that quality of robust love,
that it may seep every crevice
of this garden of life and make
it invincible again. It shall
be more than just a dream,
you dreamed, Walt. I will
learn to make it so. WE will
learn to make it so.
O Camden, my Camden
be born anew on the dust
of words from Lincoln’s
mouth and Whitman’s
pen – and all we have
come to know
since then –
to be true.
Let not the past
have come to be
in vain. Look for the
fragile infant bird
of change to rise
up from the ashes of
our discontent and the
dust of their very words.
“But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
Abraham Lincoln
The Gettysburg Address
November 19, 1863
“I DREAM'D in a dream, I saw a city invincible to the
attacks of the whole of the rest of the earth;
I dream'd that was the new City of Friends;
Nothing was greater there than the quality of robust
love—it led the rest;
It was seen every hour in the actions of the men of
that city,
And in all their looks and words.”
Walt Whitman
“I Dreamed In a Dream”, Leaves of Grass
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