Housatonic — While I was reading, I listened with one ear and watched with one eye the televised Fourth of July TV spectaculars.
Among the fireworks’ blossoms and booms, bands trumpeted martial music. Choruses rendered quaint patriotic music dusted off each year for the occasion: “God Bless America,” “You’re a Grand Old Flag, America,” “The Stars and Stripes Forever,” “The Star Spangled Banner,” and, ironically, “This Land is Your Land.”
All I heard were dirges.
When the pyrotechnics stop, and the music celebrating a place that may have never existed at all goes quiet, darkness falls. When we awake, lights won’t explode with color but will flicker and dim.
Perhaps with time we’ll come to realize we’re living in the sundown of a noble but now impossible dream.
