“A weed is but an unloved flower.”

Ella Wilcox

It’s always the suffering underdogs

Who really tug at my heart and soul

Whether they’re a homeless veteran

Or an animal someone has tortured so

Far too many still treated like garbage

Far too many still despised like a weed

Ridiculed and kicked and even poisoned

Yet another of mankind’s malicious deeds

The man in the box was a valiant Vietnam soldier

When he returned home he couldn’t find any work

Most Americans don’t even notice him lying there

And if they do, they mumble, ‘Get a Job, You Jerk…’

His family his friends and his very own government

Don’t seem to care about his nightmares or his pain

Once, he was willing to give his very life for us

Now, most of us label him a lazy bum or insane

This very sweet canine is named Dandelion

Found with a suffocating chain around her neck

She’d been starved tortured and then abandoned

Left to die in a rusting away old automobile wreck

She has now endured many painful larynx surgeries

She can’t even bark out in joy like most other canines

And the cruelty we continue to inflict on our dandelions

Far too often these days makes me wonder about mankind

Wander down any street or back alley anywhere in America

And you are liable to spot a pitiful stray or a cold homeless vet

Our vets and our pets have given us all they’ve ever had to give

And after all this time we don’t render very much compassion yet

Please resolve to help at least one downtrodden valiant veteran

Or at least one abandoned abused and frightened dog or cat today

At least make a donation to a soup kitchen or to an animal shelter

We owe a huge debt of gratitude to these dandelions that we must repay

There are millions of abandoned pets in America today

And there are thousands of homeless vets in alleys out back

Many of these vets served extremely honorably back in Vietnam

And sadly, many now are from our wars in Afghanistan and Iraq

Where, Oh Where,

Did America’s Loyalty and Compassion Go?

Our Nation Today, For Far Too Many Souls,

Is Too Damned Cruel and Cold