The Color of the Flag

Added 24 March 1998

Blue.
White.
Red.
The most common
colors of Flag.

Blue.
To mark the atrocities
before a nations birth;
parents persecuted,
children killed,
fields burned.
The oily smoke that clings to lungs
and directs things to come,
that cancerous stain that
needles at every breath.
The color that shrouds
both shallow grave and wooden box.

White.
The purity of intentions.
The hope merely for a life
of one's own design.
Makes the struggle clear
at blue smokes thickest.
The facts of fathers,
the promise of progeny
and a healthy harvest.
The color that takes
the right rightous forefront.

Red.
The blood spilled to keep
tender blue and failing white.
Keeps the growth going,
always looking, always consuming,
wanting to hold fast to fiery youth
and the following tempered times,
smothering one and bruising the other.
The force that fledglings fight against.
The color that all leading roads
are someday paved in.

Written 30 October 1997