Fireworks
Patriotism is the virtue of the vicious. -Oscar Wilde
I look up to the sky
On the Fourth of July
To see the whole country on fire,
As the cannon shots roar
And the unfurled flag soars,
I see in depth man’s deep desire.
Not the pride of a race,
Or a monument face,
Or their freedom, or fallen, or fate:
No, the thing that I hear
Is the thing I most fear:
The pledge to an anthem of hate.
For the frost is unthawing,
And eagles are gnawing
On bones of the victims of strife
That still lives in our land,
That still grows and expands
‘Till unequal becomes part of life.
For all of our gains
And good, so much remains
To be bettered and fixed when it’s broken,
But there’s so few who care
To make changes, or dare
To speak all of the words left unspoken.
