balladeer of moons
173,964 poems read
It is altogether fitting and proper to dedicate a Poem this Fourth of July, as I have each year, beginning seven years ago. But in a larger sense, I cannot consecrate or hallow this day, nor can anyone. Full measures of devotion and high resolves are put into poems so that they may not have been written in vain. I do not feel that this poem was written in vain. Yet from it, I can neither add nor detract. I feel, rather, that I shall have performed a great unfinished task and continued an important, if only personal tradition. The world will little note nor long remember what has been said here. However, if 30 school children with learning disabilities can commit to memory the Gettysburg Address on its 150th anniversary, then I can offer up this Independence Day another not so unheard poem. Let it not perish from memory.