Ring the Liberty Bell by Ayala Emmett


Yesterday I saw them
Generations of ancestors
Crying on the shores of Babylon
Chained slaves to be sold at dawn
Rising up in the Warsaw Ghetto
Taking the Great Spirit on the Trail of Tears.
Isaiah was at the Statue of Liberty
With the exiled, the poor and the stranger.

Yesterday I saw the Burning Bush and
Moses on the Rio Grande waving his cane
Let my people go.
In Pharaoh’s land the mothers wailed
In Texas their babies were jailed.

Yesterday I saw in the sea of refugees
Deborah the Judge and Ruth Bader Ginsburg
Holding the Declaration and God’s Rainbow
Hannah prayed with humanity
Spread over us the shelter of Your peace.

Yesterday, today, and tomorrow
America the Beautiful is raising its voice
Ring the Liberty Bell