(Editor’s note – As has become the tradition, we are reprinting the original poem created by Mount Vernon’s poet laureate Amelia Kibbie for Memorial Day)
I
Seventeen,
a number — prime —
immortalized in song.
Seventeen,
invulnerable —
nothing can go wrong.
Seventeen,
the years cicadas dream —
their songs subdued.
Seventeen,
to venerate —
odd-numbered guns salute.
Seventeen,
known in the frozen lands of midnight sun
or endless night
as the heart,
the black of winter.
Now —
unfurl your hands,
open them soft-cupped with trust
and hold that number
with fingers firm and resolute,
your palms protective
and your touch tender,
sweetly loving.
Hold seventeen.
II
On this, a sacred, silenced day
of solemn ritual remembrance,
the comfort of the honorable homage,
a mile down the road there rests
a piece of Gettysburg, a stoic altar,
a memento mori, tribulation tried,
masonry for memory
lest we forget
that freedom is not free.
Gettysburg, where spectral soldiers
haunt the acres, misty orbs of light.
Both sides were buried where they fell, like seeds
were scattered, the soil enriched by the blood of men.
To ghosts like these we raise our flags,
stars and stripes bright, snapping in the breeze,
we chisel in the names
and tend the graves of strangers —
tend them, tend them tenderly.
We drag home boulders from their battlefields
so that we may pay respects, our hearts pressed
willingly, like Giles Corey,
beneath the gravity of
the incalculable numbers,
the endless stretch
of names etched
onto the black mirrored memorial.
MORE WEIGHT.
The boulder from Gettysburg traveled 900 miles from Pennsylvania
to Lisbon, Iowa.
And yet we shy away from other, heavier things,
as if our war dead are more precious
than the wounded and the burdened,
their suffering lost in the shadows cast
by majestic monuments, their
keening drowned by dogmatic fireworks
and the rousing applause that follows
the grand finale.
III
But… wait.
Could you—
could I—
could we—
could America
gather on a fragile morning such as this
with our dogs and kids and folding chairs
to hear poems about poppies and the Gettysburg Address,
our eyes misty from the Taps so sweetly blown
just like the Tomb of the Unknown
to lift a different sort of weight
the burden of a hidden stone?
One that cannot be seen or touched, or placed
upon a pedestal of honor—
it’s invisible, this crushing boulder
bodies riddled with scars;
But did we all forget
the hearts riddled with regrets?
Coming home — will come home — will always come home
with the weight of a thousand Gettysburg boulders
bearing down upon their shoulders
stones that will never be carved with their names
or plaques that say:
“Sacred to the Memory
of the Happiness and Sanity
of those who Fought so Valiantly
Kept in Perpetuity.”
There is no Memorial Day to honor their ghosts,
the revenants they become
haunting the moonlit ruins
of their former lives
praying to be exorcized.
IV
Estranged, they come home strangers
our most homegrown foreigners
America’s a melting pot — you must adapt,
so pull yourself up
by your bootstraps
even if you no longer speak the native language
or note the passage of time in the same way,
ripped from your days and nights
and the ordered-hundred hours.
But chambers of their hearts are in ruins
stanzas cut from a poem,
when home isn’t home anymore
and our leaders shuttered the havens
severed hope of help — there is no place to rest.
“I pulled into Nazareth
was feelin’ ‘bout half past dead
I just need someplace
where I can lay my head
hey mister can you tell me
where a man might find a bed?
He just grinned and shook my hand
‘No,’ is all he said…”*
V
Two truths can coexist.
We can honor the war dead who
traded blood for ideals
praise and pray for them
and in the same breath ask:
Why does our system perpetuate suffering?
Why don’t we ease the burdens of our exhausted,
overworked service personnel?
Why don’t we take better care of our veterans
and their mental health?
Why don’t we check in on our neighbors?
Why are we more globally connected than ever before
along the course of history
yet more isolated
and fatally lonely?
VI
Soon we’ll hear that day is done,
gone the sun.
Tell me
when you fill your lungs, your breath
all made of honor,
do you play that song for them?
May they safely rest, now kept by God?
Or are they not the right kind of ghosts?
Do you remember that number I gave you
to have and to hold?
Seventeen?
Seventeen.
Seventeen veterans on average
die by suicide every day.
That’s why I asked you to hold it tenderly,
a tiny bird or a child’s trusting hand.
To the seventeen we’ll lose today,
I’m sorry we failed you,
that you were alone with your pain.
I want you to know that
you were precious
and worthy of love.
Despite all the fanfare,
the country grinding to a halt
to ensure a moment of silence
for the dead, those already gone
beyond our ability to heal or help,
I want you to know
you meant more to us alive
and we wish you were here.
We can’t bring you back
any more than we could
open these graves all around us and scream
to heaven for resurrection.
But we can make a vow
right now
to save tomorrow’s
seventeen.
VII
If you’re sinking, struggling, mired
in pain
promise you’ll reach out
before turning your hand against yourself.
You trusted your battle buddy
to watch your back when it counted.
If you’re somewhere, he’s there with you,
you share each other’s load.
There’s no expiration date on that sacrament.
There are people all around you ready to watch your six.
There is no reason we, all of us
can’t share a foxhole.
You are not a burden
but we can carry that weight.
Close your eyes and sign your name
to the declaration written on your heart:
Comradeship. Devotion to Duty.
Belonging
and Community.
VIII
When we pledge allegiance to the flag
by rule of law or choice,
or sing our anthem to
invoke a blessing at a summer baseball game,
Let’s use that moment to renew our vows.
Our vow to Be the One.
Listen, instead of waiting for your turn to speak.
and if you or someone you know is struggling with thoughts of suicide,
call or text 988 to talk to someone who can help.
Available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Look around you. Right now.
Lock eyes with the person next to you
friend or neighbor or stranger
share their gaze
and swear
That you are a safe place.
That you are a haven.
A harbor in a storm,
an unshakable anchor.
Be the One.
Set aside the signs
in your neighbors’ yards, the
flags we do or do not fly
and reach out.
*Lyrics to “The Weight” written by Robbie Robertson and The Band
Carry the Weight
June 6, 2024