What I Carried Across The Ocean

When I first crossed the ocean,
I came to marry my American husband,
carrying love and a luminous hope:
that classrooms here taught minds to open,
that questions were a form of courage,
that truth, once learned, could set us free.

But now I watch the crowds move quietly,
shoulder to shoulder, step for step,
afraid to leave the well-worn path –
so many sheep beneath the shouting,
so few lions willing to stand alone.

How can a lie, repeated loudly,
become a banner above the street?
How can the cruel and self-serving
borrow the language of devotion
and teach good people to surrender doubt?

I chose this country with my whole heart.
I love its restless, spacious promise –
the freedom to build, to speak, to begin again;
the stubborn dream that ordinary hands
can shape a future worth inheriting.

And that is why its unraveling hurts:
to see goodness mistaken for weakness,
decency mocked and sold,
trust stripped from every doorway,
and mercy dismissed as naive.

Still, love is not blind allegiance.
Love is the voice that refuses to flatter.
Love asks the difficult questions,
holds power up to the light,
and will not trade conscience for belonging.

So I will keep choosing this country –
not only as it is, but as it might yet be:
a nation awake enough to listen,
brave enough to think,
and strong enough to choose the truth.