Thomas R. Smith




Dream Union

            For Woody Guthrie, born July 14, 1912

Woodrow Wilson Guthrie, you not only 
faced the headlines but made music of them.
And perhaps that too was "the biggest
thing that man has ever done."

Fatalities of fire, poverty, disease —
somehow you accepted, incorporated
them in your voice's matter-of-factness, 
resolved to engage the world with hope.

Your songs of brotherhood, fairness,
equality still spread their fire from
tongue to tongue, a chain of flame no
fascist retardant can extinguish.

James Wright wrote of his old scout-
master in Martins Ferry, Ohio,
"When I think of Ralph Neal, I feel
some kind of ice in me breaking open."

Thinking of you, I hear the true heart-
beat of America and wake again
to this day's news in search of a way back
to the unfinished dream of our union.