~ Here’s to What We Have Become ~

Today is Independence Day. I see people having fun, throwing parties, and living in ignorant bliss. I have no problem with enjoying life, I see that as an important part of the American Dream. But at the thought of people disregarding our past and the path we took to get here? It makes me sick and it makes me sad. It’s not “the 4th of July”, it is Independence Day. It is the day (well, actually 2 days after, but for all practical purposes…) that we declared our independence and began the journey to making this great country. A country based on truth, freedom, prosperity, family, justice, and faith. Yet I fear that over the years we have separated ourselves from each other, have forgotten how special and unique our country is, and have forgotten the foundation that our country was made upon. I wrote this poem on Memorial Day, and the flag I painted on Flag Day. But today is the day that we declared our Freedom from tyranny, so I can think of no better day to share them both. Please, don’t let that slip away. It only takes a generation to forget, and we need this generation to remember. For if not us, then who? If not them, then where would we be today?

~ Here’s to What We Have Become ~

The sky is bright on this summer’s day
And children laugh, unrestricted is play
where no one fears what words they may say
And still on the table a Bible may lay

Today is another in the land of the brave
Where our home is safe and freedom is paid
We go as we please, no thought of who gave
And allow ourselves to again be enslaved

Here our history is twisted and smeared
Where we all repeat what we fought in years
Past down are no memories of what They held dear
And all together, our conscience is seared

Where is the life? The Light? And the truth?
What ever happened to the innocence of youth?
Why have issues now become moot?
And why do we not destroy it at the root?

The problem began when we forgot our foundation.
No morals to hold, or the God of our nation
The deaths were for nothing, our lives in stagnation
And before we admit, it will be our damnation

We toss life away like a car that’s too old
We follow ourselves, not the wisdom we’re told
We are now gods, just as the Word foretold
And if it’s for ‘me’, in that deal we’re sold

Freedom for safety, we trade in a minute
No thought of the consequence or the lies within it
The idea of others, them we’d rather omit
But will we survive, or be the ones called unfit?

We think for a second that freedom is bought
With money that burns, no lives, that’s the thought
Yet we will not pay, someone else’s better off
The ideas we’re fed get us drunk on the spot

Where is the land that my grandfather’s knew?
The place where liberty and and determination grew?
And the crops, profit, and families too
All with one thought: for me and for you

So here’s to the land of the home of the free
Of the men who have died for you and for me
To follow our dreams of who we might be
And that the unborn child might one day see

Here’s to the land where I’m safe in the streets
Where a gun in my own hands is mine to keep
A place still of laws, and morals still sweet
And knowing that freedom here never sleeps

Here’s to the land where parents are one
When dad’s come home, a child will run
Into arms that protect, provide, poke fun
A leader for sure, a father raising a son

Here’s the land where mothers still care
Respect and devotion are forever and fair
A place where a daughter keeps down her hair
And no fear come from a father’s place there

Here’s to the land where options are many
Where food is supplied, and production is plenty
Where my life is not hindered, I have more than a penny
My interests not few, but have one and twenty

Here’s to the land where you can have your own mind
Intellect is allowed, and intelligence is refined
What you may learn is in no way defined
Yet somehow we allow ourselves to be blind

Here’s to the land where slavery lost
That the chains of ideas never had what they sought
The destruction and hinderance of what we call thought
Never once did we think that it does have a cost

Here’s to the land where the Bible’s still read
Where publicly I can say what needs to be said
And I can look back to where He had lead
Yet our country without Him, my heart’s filled with dread

I cry at the loss my country has made
Disrespect of the place for which they had prayed
Not one of them has since been repaid
Save the damage we’ve done to the land that they saved

The land that broke at the blood and the sweat
of a farmers hand, and a bullet for our debt
No one complained of the toil and yet
We count it as nothing; we sit and we fret

So here’s to the land we created instead
A land without God, and immorality spread
A land where fear and hatred is shed
Darkness that covers all truth that had lead

Here’s to the land of no morals to keep
No command to be held or even safe streets
A school with a bomb and revenge is sweet
Your own laws to follow, no remorse in your sleep

Here’s to a land where no father is home
No mother to devote, and the daughter will roam
A son grows up with no man to become
And a house is shattered by a pair of the same one

Here’s to the land we thought we had wanted
A place with no bravery of man to be counted
No woman to nurture her child, he’s hunted
And no child for actions can he be accounted

We remember the words of the rockets red glare
But forget that the sound is destructive elsewhere.
While we smile at the colours, blinded we stare,
People shutter as the sound blows their lives in the air

Here’s to the land of warriors lost
Who died for no reason, we ignored the cost
To those giving what we have now tossed
Their graves stand alone, covered in frost

We forgot of the fields where our warriors bled
Lie in unmarked graves, the homes of the dead
Never respected, we laugh there instead
Making light of the willing blood that was shed

What happened when we forgot who we are?
Have we really fallen from a place so far?
Do we forget the sea of red near a star
With the white and the blue, forever been marred

To this we’ve become in the land of the ‘free’
A land swept in the time of just ‘me’
Morality lost in a desensitized sea
Yet there is still a weakened plea

We can still turn back, we’ve not all forgot
We must hold onto freedom before it rots
Though in our ledger are black and red spots
But we have to start now, who will if us not?

Here’s to what we have become
A cry I make, though the damage can be undone
You know now the cost and where we’ve come from
Will you stand for truth, or let evil overcome?

~ Rose

A memorial to the sacrifice that made our country strong.