“I Had a Dream Too"

All enter this life with promice
Then the years bleed by one by one
As we meet what comes to face us
Til we reach the end and are done.

The promise each day gets broken
When Chance spins the wheel of our life
Each day we pick up our token
To ride our own ride without strife.

The plane that falls from the heavens
The people shot down in the street
The thousands dead in the Balkans
The death toll keeps rising each week.

Civilians locked in close combat
In the midst of our cities all
Folks medevac’d at the Walmart
Shot dead as they shopped at the mall.

Tornadoes suck up our neighbors
Floods wash away all of our homes
Oil slicks ravage all our sea shores
Pollution where buffalo roam.

Popcorn can kill without warning
Hamburgers may kill all our kids
We fear we won’t see the morning
Our cities are blowing their lids.

The press is first on the death scene
And blood flows like film from a can
Its hard to know what it all means
It looks like the death-knell for man.

We can’t live in fear forever
But it seems that it will not change
We watch the TV receiver
What we see there looks very strange.

Some promise dreams we’ll remember
Some remember dreams long ago
Some are marked “Return to Sender”
Some say “That’s the way that things go.”

The TV is not the answer
Its prophecy is not quite whole
Its half truths are much like cancer
And each year they take a high toll.

Turn off the tube that is burning
Fold your paper to the cartoons
Pick up a book and start learning
The ship may be leaving soon.

Life is the way that we make it
Or others break into our dreams
We face the truth or we fake it
In life we won’t know what it means.

So just believe in the promise
Fear not when you go into life
Fear not if it's not in focus
Fear not if it's not without strife.

Life must be lived to have value
Though some, too fast taken away
Take all that this life will give you
And start living it well each day

So challenge, fear not what happens
Fear not all the things that you see
Be sure that you use your tokens
And then live life fearless and free.

For all enter life with promise
The years will go by one by one
We must take what life gives to us
Until the last reel is done.