Day 494 Memorial Day
The gravestones stand in silence, small flags flutter in soft breeze.
Below them, those in uniform, dead of the same disease.
War takes so many from us and these here did not return.
Though we will all join them someday when Death says it’s our turn.
“It is for us, the living” (1) to assure that those who died
Bequeathed a land to all of us in which they could take pride.
“All races, all religions” (2) gave their lives to keep us free.
Would souls war tore from us now want to live with you and me?
- Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg Address, November 19, 1863
- From The House I Live In, lyric by Abel Meeropol, music by Earl Robinson. Abel Meeropol adopted the two children of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, who were executed for spying for Russia and giving them atomic bomb secrets. The two best known recordings are by Frank Sinatra and Paul Robeson.