250 years ago
Our forefathers
Struggled.
In Boston
They wondered
Why they couldn’t
Merely get along
With their day,
Why the British
Were so interested
In their activities,
Why they kept
Meddling.
And things
Kind of
Escalated.
Originally it was just Boston
But then
It spread
Across 13 colonies.
13 colonies,
The product of several
Ambitious empires
In the Old World
Discovering the New,
Not the New World
Being discovered,
Which had been done,
Perhaps,
Over the Bering Strait,
But certainly by Vikings,
By the Chinese,
Neither of which
Decided to stay,
To do something substantial,
There.
But eventually,
The Spanish,
The English,
The French,
The Dutch,
They all left their mark
Somewhere,
And that started
A ball rolling
Toward Freedom.
250 years ago
These colonies
Declared Freedom.
They declared
Self-determination,
Which they thought
They’d already had
And defied
An empire
In order to secure.
They weren’t united.
In the beginning, they weren’t.
They squabbled,
These colonies,
And even when the war was won
They wondered how they would
Live together.
Factions arose.
The Virginians,
Perhaps originally recruited
To add legitimacy
To Boston’s struggles,
Began to assume control.
But that was Freedom,
The ability to squabble and still
Coexist.
Sometimes we assert
A Virginian’s suggestion
That this struggle
Be recapitulated
To renew the idea
But we do it every day,
Which is the point,
Which we forget
Every day,
Which is the point.
That’s freedom.
That’s 250 years
Of Freedom.
