On a day we should celebrate, businesses are boarding up their windows in fear,
not for the storms of nature, but for the tempests within us all.
On a day meant for joy, for gratitude, for remembrance,
we find ourselves fractured, each pane of glass reflecting our own guarded hearts.
On a day we should love, people hate each other passionately,
as if love has become a luxury, one we can no longer afford.
Words that once carried warmth are barbed with resentment,
echoes of a bond unraveling, of walls rising higher between us.
On a day men and women died for, fellow citizens will fail to see the value in their voice,
not out of ignorance but exhaustion, or maybe indifference.
They forget, or perhaps never knew, that silence is not freedom,
and apathy is a chain as binding as any shackle ever forged.
What have we done with the gift they left us?
This fragile inheritance, this tenuous right to speak, to gather, to dream.
We should be bound together in shared purpose, in honor of all that was given,
and yet, here we stand, divided, blinded by our own fears and wounds.
Perhaps today, we can choose differently.
Let the boarded windows be symbols of protection, not exclusion.
Let the fire of passion be kindled not for hate, but for healing.
Let our voices, though imperfect, rise as one—so that the sacrifices of the past
find meaning in the unity of our present.
Leave a Reply