Photo Credit: Gay Cannon
Used With Permission
Red White and Blue
There are no doves today.
The wind holds down
what twisted, furls
with every rising number
tracking another soldier gone.
We don't bother to count
what we cannot see
blowing up in the dust
beside the Tigris, along roads
daily erupting with specters,
the mountains — over there —
still falling, loosing the ash
of so many prayers failing.
Once the fight was about gaining
ground, stopping the dominoes,
celebrating the coming
together after being sundered.
We live now for the freedom
of a day off to cook out and play
ball, to rock our neighborhoods
with our outlawed cherry bombs,
to jimmy sparklers from made-in
-China boxes. We'll be streaming
confetti on the Mall as we wait
for the sky to dim and fireworks
to turn the moon red white and blue.
© 2011 Maureen E. Doallas
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I offer this poem for today's One Shoot Sunday at One Stop Poetry, hosted by Gay Cannon and featuring her own images as picture prompts.
Anyone may participate by contributing an original poem or prose marking Independence Day. Go here to read Gay's post and the instructions for sharing your work.
Happy July 4!
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7 comments:
..turn the moon red white and blue...you americans..smiles...love this maureen - i can sense with every fibre how proud you are of your country - and this is good
I wonder have we sold out for what we want for something that we will never attain?
A red white and blue moon is a gr8 idea.
Happy 4th my dear
We celebrate one day for what our troops pay forever. Questions and flags should be raised every day to support our troops.
I love the "turn" in the poem as the horror of war witnessed on television becomes too uncomfortable, and joy is taken in small delights of food, family, friends, amid the sparkles of hope against a moon. Beautiful. Thank you for linking! Come back tomorrow for the Blues!
A wonderful contrast, Maureen, between those dusty roads along the Tigris and the moon turning red, white and blue over the Mall.
Beautiful write... delicate and strong altogether.
Once again Mareen your tight lines
tell clearly the tension between freedom and the cost of it. Thanks.
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