image from odessyonline.com
poem submitted to "We Celebrate 250 Years" poetry contest,
William Kelii Kekaula, sponsor, June 30, 2026
I write by lantern-light, ink trembling on the edge of a new republic, the parchment warm beneath my hand as if it knows the weight of what we dare. We were young then~ young in courage, young in fear, young in the wild hope that liberty might outlive us. Yet even as we signed our names to the fragile promise of freedom, I felt the future leaning in, a quiet listener at the door, waiting to see what we would build. Two hundred and fifty years now rise behind you, a long corridor of footsteps echoing the truths we tried to set in motion: that all are born with dignity, that justice must breathe, that freedom is a flame tended by many hands. You—inheritors of our audacious beginning~ stand at the seam between history and horizon, gripping the same lantern we refused to drop through smoke, doubt, and the long night of becoming. If I could speak into your century, I’d say this without hesitation: the republic is no museum piece. It is a living promise. And every generation must write its own fierce expression in the relentless poem of freedom. Express it. Guard it. Question it. Renew it. Let freedom be not only memory, but invention~ a future shaped by every creative voice that dares to rise. Although a great nation, America is still becoming, and the future still stands listening at your door.
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