Poet, bard and teller of our tale,
take up a task unknown before,
for never was an end at hand
before which differences of creed grow pale.

Sing for us the dwellers in the hills
who must survive with minds intact,
who’ll learn the bad and need the good,
but sing it now –before the rains that kill.

Poet, bard and teller of our tale,
let memory prod from you the truth
of how we flourish, ask the questions,
how we aspire, doubt, achieve and fail.

Remember us and write it now, our special skills,
our diverse races and our nations,
our universal search for love,
but tell it now –before the rains that kill.

Show the details: frowning in preoccupation
as we follow every lead,
showing us changing, learning to unbend,
show us angry with frustration.

Show us in motion and with stills,
show us in our blacks and whites,
in colors and in every gray,
but show us now –before the rains that kill.

For we are worthy of your song,
our works are still enlarging Truth,
our best a pleasure to the heart,
our faith in life itself still strong.

If each of us has yearning to be quiet,
then tell how most of us can not,
but speak again against the lie,
to loud object, to strong deny it.

If each of us, provoked, can kill,
then tell this present miracle,
that most of us do not,
though there is provocation still.

Sing now our courage and our will,
our strange requirement for Truth,
our love of beauty and of laughter,
but sing it now –before the rains that kill.

Poet, bard and teller of our tale,
take up a task unknown before,
for never was an end at hand
before which differences of creed grow pale.

Sing in deserts, valleys and the hills,
on beaches, in our shelters,
in our cities and at sea,
but sing us now –before the rains that kill.