A Truce for the Fourth of July
God knows, we’ve fought enough these past few years — but for one night, we make a truce. A poem.
As darkness settles over the land,
we gather above the wide river —
some thousands of us Americans
come for Fourth of July fireworks.
Our long shadows linger in the last
light, entangling us with one another,
and perhaps with the shadows of armies
once encamped here, waiting for war.
God knows, we’ve fought enough
these past few years — it’s been us
versus you, we the red & we the blue;
and even we who would wave
the white flag of truces
have shed our share of blood
and borne our share of bruises.
But for now we sheath our phones,
unfurling billowing blankets instead:
a pop-up patchwork quilt scavenged
from leftover scraps of our common-
weal. We are happy to move a little
to the right, or a little to the left,
making room so our neighbors can see
unimpeded by our big heads. Milk-sweet
babies drowse in our laps and children…
