Memorial Day Poem

A Memorial Day Poem

Memorial Day comes at the start of summer, an apparent dichotomy as we picnic and party, but also mark the great sacrifices that created America. We honor millions of men and women who died for our cherished freedoms and our form of democratic government . The American way of life is not cheap. It has been purchased by the lives and blood of so many who have sacrificed for us.

A poem found me in the stillness of that reverence in summer’s beginning. As often happens, it came to me under a tree.

I Sat Under My Favorite Oak

I looked up as the finches trilled
through a perfect May afternoon
and knew I harbored a mystic bliss
in a sense of galloping
on the treetops the way my roan mare
from weekend rides long ago
was ready to be coaxed to lope
under the hanging eucalyptus branches
of Palos Verdes toward the Pacific ocean.

That sense I could be forever free
in my heart. I carry that galloping
still, now toward the sea inside
and waves I can ride to anywhere.
Whenever I pause and am truly still
I can feel the gold threading my veins
Above me, the boughs shift and creak
like an old ship, and all the branches
ride the air at different speeds.