OH BEAUTIFUL

by Chris Reed

AI-generated graphic by NightCafé for The New Verse News.

For the country’s 250th birthday celebration

my sister texts a collage of photos of our mother

in her last years before dying at 100.

At first it seems a strange birthday message

for the nation, until I start looking at the photos.

In my mother’s face, her seated posture, 

often holding flowers or her cat on her lap,

I see the inevitable wear of years, time’s destruction,

a loss of elasticity and nimbleness, 

a loss of focus, purpose and endless energy,

a loss of fitting in to how things work and get done.

 

Yet in her eyes and smile in photo after photo,

I see acceptance and memories of past joys

and loves, her ocean sailings, mountain climbs, 

her shore walks, and dance among multitudes.

I see a hint of denial, pretending that her place

in the family of things is not coming to an end,

only her eyes betraying her knowledge 

that the journey has already started.

Her face tells me all this, but also tells me 

that amid her brokenness and joys and losses,

ever courageous, she is finding new love

and meaning in this, her season of endings.

 

With no flowers for you, let me still say,

Happy Birthday America.

Chris Reed cared for her mother in her last two years of life and found beauty in her mother's decline in health and purpose.  Finishing Line Press recently published a chapbook of Reed's poems about this time, Two Years and Two Months.

AMERICA 253

by Scott McConnaha

 

 

I turned eight the summer of 1976

and everything seemed to swell

with bicentennial pride.

Even the cement trucks were painted

red, white, and blue and we waved

our flags at the fire engines

and high school band as they

paraded down a crowded Mission Avenue

buzzing with proud cheers and

Tootsie Rolls thrown at our feet.

It belonged to everyone, that time.

 

Today, there are some storefront windows

painted with America 250 and the light poles

down Main Street have banners with that logo,

but it's different these 50 years later.

Perhaps I've become too gun-shy, too cynical,

too resentful that these patriotic displays

have been hoarded and redefined

and now stand for all the wrong ideas

about what this country is and ought to be.

 

I looked online but haven't yet found anyone

selling America 253 shirts. I think it's a good idea

because most of us want to celebrate a different,

truer version of what this country is

and ought to be. But we know it’s going to take

a few more years to build a ballroom 

that will accommodate all of us.

Scott McConnaha is a veteran, former teacher, editor, and healthcare administrator. He and his wife live in Plymouth, Wis. He is the author of a poetry chapbook titled Without a Prayer, and his work has appeared in Mobius, America, Door is a Jar, New Verse News, Dissident Voice, and Moss Piglet, among other publications.