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“They could take out a city,” he said. “Let them take—Let them take out Los Angeles. Let them take out San Diego.” Graphic generated by AI; words generated by DJT. |
There was a time
I knew what the word meant.
A flag on a porch.
A hand over the heart.
A uniform folded away
after the wearing was done.
Patriot.
It was not a threat.
It did not need to be shouted.
It did not belong
to one man.
Now the word comes dressed
in red hats and anger,
printed across shirts
beside the face of a politician,
as though love of country
required love of him.
And the flag follows.
From truck beds,
from rally stages,
from poles crowded
with the name of a man
above the name of a nation.
Until sometimes
I hesitate to raise mine.
Imagine that.
An American
made uncertain of his own flag
because someone else
has wrapped himself in it.
Then I heard a president say,
Let them take out Los Angeles.
Let them take out San Diego.
I heard those words
and looked at my flag.
Fifty stars.
Not red states.
Not blue states.
States.
Los Angeles is ours.
San Diego is ours.
Detroit is ours.
The small town.
The crowded city.
The farmhouse at the end of the road.
The apartment window
six floors above the street.
The people who agree with me
and the people who do not.
All of them.
Patriot.
I keep turning the word over,
trying to find the thing
I remember.
Not obedience.
Not a red hat.
Not loving a president
more than the country
he was elected to serve.
And not the accusation
hurled at anyone
who refuses to follow.
You do not get to tell me
that dissent is disloyalty.
You do not get to measure
my love of country
by my love of you.
Maybe patriotism
was never the shouting.
Maybe it was always
the quieter thing.
The hand over the heart.
The uniform folded away.
The flag on the porch
moving in the morning wind
with no man’s name beneath it.
There.
That is my flag too.
It belongs to the protester
as surely as the parade,
to the one who questions
as surely as the one who salutes,
to every American
unwilling to confuse
a man with a country.
Maybe the flag does not belong
to the loudest man
who wraps himself in it.
Maybe it belongs
to whoever refuses
to surrender a single star.
So I will keep flying mine.
Not because of him.
In spite of him.
Because he does not
get to have it.
Patriot.
A.M. Silvestri is a Michigan writer and retired professional firefighter whose poetry often draws upon nature, place, memory, public life, and the ordinary moments that reveal something larger. His current work includes ROOTED: A Year of Haiku.
