To The Veterans

It is Veteran’s Day. Around where I live, sadly, it is mostly going unnoticed. The only reason I remembered was because our neighbors have hung up their American flag, which only makes its appearance on the end of their porch a few times a year. And then I took a short walk out to our mailbox and delightedly realized that it was empty. (The mail is not my friend, being a benefactor of my Discover card bill and the odd sad report card. So I delight in its nakedness.) After I got over my glee, I was confused. Did someone steal my mail?? And then I put two and two together, and, while I’m no math whiz, recalled it was Veteran’s Day.

So I want to thank our veterans! I hold you in high esteem. Truly I do. Thank you for your dedication to our country. Thank you for all the self-sacrificing ways you have served. I have a big heart for Veterans, and whenever they walk by in the parades, I cry.

So, those who are acquainted with me know that I love a good poem. Especially one by Robert Frost. This one was spoken by the author at the Inauguration of John F. Kennedy.

The Gift Outright
The land was ours before we knew the land’s.
She was our land more than a hundred years
Before we were her people. She was ours
In Massachusetts, in Virginia,
But we were England’s, still colonies,
Possessing what we were still unpossessed by
Possessed by what we now no more possessed.
Something we were withholding made us weak
Until we found out that it was ourselves
We were withholding from our land of living,
And forthwith found salvation in surrender.
Such as we were we gave ourselves outright
(The deed of gift was many deeds of war)
To the land vaguely realizing westward,
But still unstoried, artless, unenhanced,
Such as she was, such as she would become.