And This Flag I Have Damned So Longly
And this flag I have damned so longly,
This rag, and nothing more,
While death-mock-racy raved and raved and avenged its bloodthirst
Over and over,
Since the inception of a country, with George and Martha and Mary
With nothing save civility, in drawingrooms and battlefields
Is justified by that gentle face, somehow justified as being no longer a damnation
But the stuff of a citizenry, with that face, and the mulatoo's face, sad, overgrown Abe
and all of his honesty,
How proud I am of the flag I never had,
Of the society I spent decades criminalizing, cursing
And of all the possibilities inherent in Innocence:
That is the face of my President
And this is my tattered flag!
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