Where are we now?
Take a look out the window
And tell me what you see.

Are there rivers and streams,
Hills and houses
Built by people with dreams?

Do you want to try
Finding that place
After our feet have touched the ground?

Do you think if we walked
For 2,000 days
We’d understand what we’d found?

This confusion of people
All pushing and thinking
And trying to find something true;

If we spoke to them all
Do you think we’d learn
Or just become more blue?

Oh, where are we now,
Where have we come to,
I wish you could tell me that.

Is it anyplace better than
The one that we left
Or haven’t we been here before?

I could swear I’ve heard
These words in days past,
For power and progress and proof,

Discard compassion
and elect reason only,
It will lead to prosperity’s truth.

But for all these years,
Humanity’s fears,
We’ve never managed the simplest:

To put aside focus
on excellence and pride
And choose to live contented,

To create our work
Not for prizes that rust
But for the value of creation intrinsic.

To recognize
the light in our eyes
is not in truth the brightest,

And even if it really were,
It would be nothing
Without someone to sight it.

We’re stronger by far
if we join hands
Than the most brilliant who would divide us.

Where are we now?
Are we moving at all?
Are we always caught between sides?

Between those who want speed
And those who want fairness
And those who ignore out of pride.

Is it possible
To make them care—
To tug their hearts into motion?

Or is the theme
Of equality’s dream
Another stone in the ocean?

We’ll gaze back at it
Through history’s waters
Now and then as all other ideas

And wonder how
such thoughts began and
how they journeyed on.

Unless, of course,
you choose to stand
And change the scales by one.

The weight of history
Is odd in that way,
Sometimes a grain of sand

Is lost amidst
a breathing desert
And never tumbles free.

But, other times,
One grain displaced
Can tip the whole company,

Or fall into
such a place
That it rubs great engines raw,

Creating heat
With one small presence
That breaks convention’s law.

Note well,
It’s not by exception
This grain achieves its cause,

Just by placing
One valuable common
Into action instead of pause.

Where are we now?
Have we gotten any closer
To finding where we stand?

Give the window a scrub
With the edge of your hand
And see if it comes clear,

See if you can spot
A path for us
In all the ages down there.

If not, I guess
We’ll have to keep
Relying on our feet,

Placing one
before the other
Without much certainty.

Opening our eyes
To each new day
To try to recorrect

The thoughts
We thought yesterday,
Which now we redirect,

Holding tight
to what seems true
And seeking better values,

The way to live,
The way to feel,
A reason to give respect to others,

And simply how
To endure a day,
before we rest forever.