A CALL TO ACTION!

Those Honored Dead

By Marion G. Mahoney

“Why do we fly the flag today?”

My Grandson wanted to know.

I fly it for the graveyards

Where the countless crosses grow.

I fly the flag for children

Whose fathers are a name.

A half-remembered memory

Of a face within a frame

I fly it for the families

Of sons and daughters lost.

They know the price of liberty

How terrible the cost!

I fly the flag for veterans

Who lost their youth in blood.

And saw their comrades slaughtered

in the carnage and the mud.

I fly it for the ones who marched

In cadence off to war

To close their eyes forever

Upon some distance shore.

I fly the flag for grief poured out

Upon a granite wall.

The laying-on of hands that heals

The Scars within us all.

I fly it for the sound of Taps---

That melancholy tune

That lays to rest those honored dead

Who always die too soon.

Copyright 1994 Marion G Mahoney