ManicDDaily

“Flag” drawing by Diana Barco

As a child, I was a school patrol, charged with the raising and lowering of our school’s American flag each day.  This was actually a very solemn post which certainly required as much care as directing kids across streets.  There were strong rules back then about the handling of the flag; these were, of course, affected by the protest movements of the Sixties, but also (perhaps even more) by subsequent commercialism–i.e. using the flag as a pattern for everything from shower curtains to napkins.  Then came all the business with the lapel flag pin, where use of the flag became incredibly polarized (and almost co-opted by various political movements.)

After 9/11 – let’s say on September 12th–flags were briefly solemn images of unity, but  their use soon became (to my mind at least) very polarized again, and somewhat jingoistic, with flags even used as antenna decorations.  As an old school patrol trained to run to retrieve and safeguard the flag at the first sight of a raindrop, I found these frayed and faded car flags rather troubling.

At any rate, here’s the poem AND a taped reading.  I urge you to check out the tape.  A villanelle on the page can seem incredibly inane–this one in particular, because its pauses that do not conform at all with the line or stanza breaks.

And finally, Happy 4th of July all, especially to my beloved country.

(Click the title for the spoken poem.  And honestly – if you are pressed for time,  click rather than read on.)

Flag (After Vietnam) Recording

Flag (After Vietnam) 

There were rules.  You weren’t allowed to let it
touch the ground.  If it did, it should be burned
or buried.  You couldn’t just forget it,

pretend it hadn’t slipped (if stained, to wet it)–
our trusted God would see and you’d be spurned.
There were rules.  You weren’t allowed to let it

rip or fray.  To be flown at night upset its
regimen, as it were.  The darkness turned
it into something buried.  Don’t forget it,

leave out in the rain; you had to get it
(getting soaked yourself, your last concern).
There were rules. You weren’t allowed to let it

pass—even at the movies, we would fête it—
until the Sixties came, and their war churned
and buried much—you couldn’t just forget it,

pretend we hadn’t slipped.  The fall begat at
least two flags—one paraded, the other mourned—
but just one rule—you weren’t allowed to let it
be buried; we couldn’t just forget it.

This entry was posted on July 4, 2012 at 4:43 pm and is filed under poetry, Uncategorized, villanelle. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments.

Tags: flag as car antenna, flag drawing by Diana Barco, Flag Villanelle, Going On Somewhere, manicddaily, respect for flag and where it's landed