Fourth of July 2025
What is the price of life,
Liberty, and the pursuit of happiness?
For some, growing pains,
Ordinary people doing their best,
Standing up to tyranny by
Declaring independence, establishing a new nation.
For some, the ultimate sacrifice, fighting
For independence from Great Britain,
In Civil War to preserve the Union,
In world wars to preserve a way of life.
For some, actions, marches, and protests,
In the face of racism and cruelty,
Efforts to make life better for their families
With rights they would not live to enjoy.
Today, we fight against people
We didn't expect to have to fight,
A president, and others blindly following,
Trying to change who we are, what our Ancestors fought to establish and keep.
Unending lies, hatred, and deceit,
Meanness, bullying, and cruelty
To degrees seen in the most notorious
Dictators of the past who despised
Their people–the poor, the lame, the wretched, the Jews.
For us, on the day we should celebrate
The birth of our country and how we shine in the world,
Our independence, our Constitution, our Bill of Rights,
How can we with any conviction
That the pains of the past are the joys of today?
Separate the politics, they say.
The country is fine, they say.
But I can't see through the tears
As I drive a main street in Connecticut
By dozens of flags cradled on utility poles.
I'm ashamed and embarrassed
At what we've become, at what's being Taken from us, at our destruction from within.
So if I celebrate the Fourth of July,
What am I celebrating?
Separate the politics; the country is fine.
I can't do that. I don't believe it.
This is my struggle.
I don't yet know the price,
But it will at least be my broken heart.
Author: Edward Dzitko
Photo: Frames For Your Heart on Unsplash
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