<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=us-ascii"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div dir="auto" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div class="">Of History and Hope</div><div class=""><table width="100%" border="0" style="font-family: Times; orphans: 2; widows: 2; text-decoration-thickness: initial;" class=""><tbody class=""><tr class=""><td width="420" align="left" valign="top" class=""><font face="Helvetica" size="4" class=""><br class=""></font><p class=""><font face="Helvetica" size="4" class="">We have memorized America,</font></p><p class=""><font face="Helvetica" size="4" class="">how it was born and who we have been and where.</font></p><p class=""><font face="Helvetica" size="4" class="">In ceremonies and silence we say the words,</font></p><p class=""><font face="Helvetica" size="4" class="">telling the stories, singing the old songs.</font></p><p class=""><font face="Helvetica" size="4" class="">We like the places they take us. Mostly we do.</font></p><p class=""><font face="Helvetica" size="4" class="">The great and all the anonymous dead are there.</font></p><p class=""><font face="Helvetica" size="4" class="">We know the sound of all the sounds we brought.</font></p><p class=""><font face="Helvetica" size="4" class="">The rich taste of it is on our tongues.</font></p><p class=""><font face="Helvetica" size="4" class="">But where are we going to be, and why, and who?</font></p><p class=""><font face="Helvetica" size="4" class="">The disenfranchised dead want to know.</font></p><p class=""><font face="Helvetica" size="4" class="">We mean to be the people we meant to be,</font></p><p class=""><font face="Helvetica" size="4" class="">to keep on going where we meant to go.</font></p><div class=""><font face="Helvetica" size="4" class=""><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></font></div><p class=""><font face="Helvetica" size="4" class="">But how do we fashion the future? Who can say how</font></p><p class=""><font face="Helvetica" size="4" class="">except in the minds of those who will call it Now?</font></p><p class=""><font face="Helvetica" size="4" class="">The children. The children. And how does our garden grow?</font></p><p class=""><font face="Helvetica" size="4" class="">With waving hands -- oh, rarely in a row --</font></p><p class=""><font face="Helvetica" size="4" class="">and flowering faces. And brambles, that we can no longer allow.</font></p><div class=""><font face="Helvetica" size="4" class=""><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></font></div><p class=""><font face="Helvetica" size="4" class="">Who were many people coming together</font></p><p class=""><font face="Helvetica" size="4" class="">cannot become one people falling apart.</font></p><p class=""><font face="Helvetica" size="4" class="">Who dreamed for every child an even chance</font></p><p class=""><font face="Helvetica" size="4" class="">cannot let luck alone turn doorknobs or not.</font></p><p class=""><font face="Helvetica" size="4" class="">Whose law was never so much of the hand as the head</font></p><p class=""><font face="Helvetica" size="4" class="">cannot let chaos make its way to the heart.</font></p><p class=""><font face="Helvetica" size="4" class="">Who have seen learning struggle from teacher to child</font></p><p class=""><font face="Helvetica" size="4" class="">cannot let ignorance spread itself like rot.</font></p><p class=""><font face="Helvetica" size="4" class="">We know what we have done and what we have said,</font></p><p class=""><font face="Helvetica" size="4" class="">and how we have grown, degree by slow degree,</font></p><p class=""><font face="Helvetica" size="4" class="">believing ourselves toward all we have tried to become --</font></p><p class=""><font face="Helvetica" size="4" class="">just and compassionate, equal, able, and free.</font></p><div class=""><font face="Helvetica" size="4" class=""><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></font></div><p class=""><font face="Helvetica" size="4" class="">All this in the hands of children, eyes already set</font></p><p class=""><font face="Helvetica" size="4" class="">on a land we never can visit -- it isn't there yet --</font></p><p class=""><font face="Helvetica" size="4" class="">but looking through their eyes, we can see</font></p><p class=""><font face="Helvetica" size="4" class="">what our long gift to them may come to be.</font></p><p class=""><font face="Helvetica" size="4" class="">If we can truly remember, they will not forget.</font></p><div class=""><font face="Helvetica" size="4" class=""><br class=""></font></div><div class=""><font face="Helvetica" size="4" class=""><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>- Miller Williams</font></div><div class=""><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div><div class=""><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div><center class=""></center></td></tr></tbody></table><br class=""></div></div></body></html>