This Morning I Am Born Again by Woody Guthrie
This Morning I Am Born Again
by Woody Guthrie
This morning I was born again and a light shines on my land
I no longer look for heaven in your deathly distant land
I do not want your pearly gates don’t want your streets of gold
This morning I was born again and a light shines on my soul
This morning I was born again, I was born again complete
I stood up above my troubles and I stand on my two feet
My hand it feels unlimited, my body feels like the sky
I feel at home in the universe where yonder planets fly
This morning I was born again, my past is dead and gone
This great eternal moment is my great eternal dawn
Each drop of blood within me, each breath of life I breathe
Is united with these mountains and the mountains with the seas
I feel the sun upon me, its rays crawl through my skin
I breathe the life of Jesus and old John Henry in
I give myself, my heart, my soul to give some friend a hand
This morning I was born again, I am in the promised land
This morning I was born again and a light shines on my land
I no longer look for heaven in your deathly distant land
I do not want your pearly gates don’t want your streets of gold
And I do not want your mansion for my heart is never cold.
...Like the Hurricane 
Thanks for a good morning world poem! I have never seen or heard this one. Polly
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Like Polly, I haven’t heard this one. I went to YouTube and found a rendition by Slaid Cleaves. If the musicality of the original is anything like this version I’m a convert. Kind of a cross between gospel and rockabilly.
Yes, it is not a well-known piece of Woody Guthrie’s. He never wrote music to it, and I “found” the poem last night when I went to hear some music. One of the singers was Slaid Cleaves (good detective work, Brita!) and when he found this poem 20 years ago he set it to music. It is worth finding, and last night it was the last song they sang and of course it chilled me and brought me to tears.