One Day: A Song by Richard Morgan

I never expected to live so long

In those shell-shocked years when the cancer came

In the proliferate shadow of the nuclear bomb

With wars fanning out like toxic flowers

It was hard to believe and grow up tall

Without a shield or a place to fall.

I never thought I'd live to see

The days of crowds so dense and wild

In processionals of liberty

Nelson Mandela strolling free

Lands governed by people, not big men

Exulting the power of ballot and pen.

I'm still waiting to walk that country of dreams

Where no child stays hungry, no baby weeps

While the waiting is longer than it seems

The poems in my head will send me to sleep

I never thought to live so long

With the taunts and screams assailing us

The acts of violence carrying on

And it threatened the heart, to look around

And see the mass of impunity

But I held my immunity, tight and strong

In the certainty that you would come

And one day listen to my song.

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