Ave America

This is the beginning of Memorial Day Weekend. This is the time when we remember those that gave their lives so that we could live ours. So in tonight's post, I wax patriotic. The poem I have posted is one that I wrote many years ago, but one whose message still feels right to me. I dedicate this posting to all of the men and women in uniform who have died so that we may live in peace, to those who once wore the uniform and defended our freedoms (including my father, Christoper A. Bogart, Sr., who passed away over ten years ago and who served in the U.S. Navy on a minesweeper on D Day at the Invasion of Normandy) and to those who defend us today all over the world. While most of us enjoy a weekend of the beach, barbecues and parties, we do so because of you. Thank you. Happy Memorial Day!

Ave America
Christopher A. Bogart, Jr.

I see verdant fields,
Seas of grass,
Waving to the will of the wind,
As they stretch
Endlessly,
Over the land.

Golden wheat, I see,
Flowing submissively,
Pleading proudly
To the deep blue sky
To be one with the sun.

I hear leafy stalks of corn,
Rustling together
As they wait
By yesterday’s faded split rail fence:
Silent sentries
Of the dusty roads and meandering lanes,
Of the streets and highways –
Enter into
Antique towns of Georgian brick and cedar shake,
And retreating past colonial barns,
Venerable monoliths
Of the soil’s productivity –
Forming a patch quilt,
Thrown out to the west,
From its stitching and seaming
On New England’s rocky shores.

I smell the acrid,
Crisp, dry smell of burning leaves,
Carried by the brisk, cool flow
Of late autumnal breezes.

In a warm and fire lit room,
Snug against the lightly drifting snow,
I smell the fresh ancestral smell
Of dampened pine.

I am this soil’s son.
My ancestors sleep peacefully
Beneath its barren and its bounty.
My heritage is woven thick,
Like a multicolored tapestry,
With sound, and smell,
And sight, and feel, and taste –
And Freedom.