Morning tomkow6. You look marvelous. I got this in email yesterday and thought I'd share with you guys over here.
Marine Penpals
http://jollyroger.com/marinepenpals/
THE JOLLY ROGER @ JOLLYROGER.COM
Ahoy there mates! A couple weeks ago the Wall Street
Journal published a jollyroger.com poem entitled "In
The Name of Freedom." If you know any brave men or
women serving overseas, please forward it to them.
Let them know we leave a candle burning every night,
praying for their safe return. Forward this poem far
and wide, and let the world know there are yet
Permanent Things worth fighting for, and that poetry
yet rhymes. And should you come across these words,
send an email to
sevenseas@jollyroger.com, and let us
know where you're stationed, be it in the Middle East,
at Camp Lejeune, or in a high school English class in
Wyoming. For we are all soldiers of the spirit, and
the renaissance is yet to be. Let's see how far and
wide poetry can travel, beyond the elite editor's
cynicism, beyond the postmodern fog, beyond the
indifferent who never knew what it was to rhyme, and
who oppose all conflict because they never felt
freedom thundering through their souls.
In The Name of Freedom
by Drake Raft
The night fell fast, I found myself alone,
A DC summer storm was blowing in,
I stood at the tomb, these soldiers unknown,
and knelt and prayed for the rain to begin.
Not for the monuments nor any money,
nor pomp, circumstance, nor the pedant's pride,
the politician's smile, nor lawyer's fee,
for these present treasures, none of them died.
I ran to Jefferson to read the wall,
to make sure that God was still written there,
then to Washington, and across the Mall,
where Lincoln invoked his immortal prayer,
Winded and ragged, lightning everywhere,
I slowed to a walk, pondered what would be,
if God's great Enlightenment weren't there,
we could still be brave but never be free.
I found comfort in the Mall's mud and rain,
without mines nor cannons nor raining shells,
so free from fear, iniquity, and pain,
because thousands had endured a thousand hells.
And I found myself back before the tomb,
humbled by the humbled, with naught for name,
shivering, though they had the colder room,
sans light, nor sound, nor tomorrow, nor fame.
I thought for a moment, what it could be,
the center and circumference of their dreaming,
it must have been the prophet's poetry,
that granted their souls eternal meaning.
So judges and congressmen, please don't forget,
the reason these patriots picked up swords,
not for perks nor power were their deaths met,
but for honor and duty--for mere words.
So do take pause before telling a lie,
for there's one more thing I saw on that night,
as the wind and the rain began to die,
I walked away, turned, and beheld a light.
Wil'O'wisp, reddish light, sailor's delight,
It hovered there--just above the tomb's stone,
As fading thunder whispered to the night,
"Freedom's the name of all soldiers unknown."