Patriotic: Memorial Day

Flags at Matt Dishman Community Center.

The challenge topic for May 27 is "Patriotic."

I'm grateful for my country, yet patriotic holidays like Memorial Day are hard for me.
Armistice Day, August 6, September 11....
They all seem to justify war and glorify heroes.
War does produce some heroes and many, many victims.
Thus flag waving is not my forte.
I struggled to write an essay on this topic, but I think I'll let others speak.


My country 'tis of thee
Sweet land of liberty
Of thee I sing.

-- Samuel Francis Smith


Breathes there the man with soul so dead
Who never to himself hath said,
This is my own, my native land!
Whose heart hath ne'er within him burned
As home his footsteps he hath turned
From wandering on a foreign strand!

-- Sir Walter Scott


This land is your land
This land is my land
From California to the New York island
From the redwood forest to the Gulf Stream water
This land was made for you and me.

In the squares of the city - in the shadow of the steeple
Near the relief office - I see my people
And some are grumblin' and some are wonderin'
If this land's still made for you and me.

-- Woodie Guthrie


Man's inhumanity to man
Makes countless thousands mourn.

-- Robert Burns


O beautiful for spacious skies
For amber waves of grain
For purple mountain majesties
Above the fruited plain.

America! America! May God thy gold refine
Till all success be nobleness
And every gain divine.

America! America! God mend thine every flaw
Confirm thy soul in self-control
Thy liberty in law.

America! America! God's grace be shed on thee
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea.

-- Katharine Lee Bates


Amen.