245 Years of Independence
12 score plus 5 years ago
At indulgent taxes
At lack of representation
At tyranny across the way
At redcoat invaders.
Promising life, liberty
Pursuit of happiness.
12 score minus 3 years ago
With French assistance,
But not all its citizens.
12 score minus 6 years ago
From failure
From civil war
From anarchy
From dependence
At the price of
3/5 a person.
9 score and 13 years ago
Into the White House
Depriving government monopoly
Giving some commoners a voice
Giving others a march full of tears.
8 score years ago
At countrymen
At slavery
At “states’s rights”
At secession.
For abolitionists
For the oppressed
For deprived conscience
Everywhere,
8 score minus 4 years ago
The North won, providing
A base freedom everywhere
A new tomorrow’s promise
Through Honest Abe’s blood
Though not enough.
6 score plus 6 years ago
Undoing Reconstruction
Lying that separate was equal
Setting us back generations
Paving way for new activism.
5 score plus 1 year ago
Against lack of power
Against irrationality
Against sexism
Against patriarchy
Both men and women
At least, outside Dixie.
4 score years ago
Against fascism
Against genocide
Against domination
Against lunacy.
4 score minus 4 years ago
Trouble brewed at home
Yet independent the nation.
3 score years ago
Activists marched
Against pollution and ecocide.
1 score and 1 decade ago
The Eagle swooped in
Independent from communism
But not from
Our worst ills.
1 score years ago
1 score minus 2 years ago
To preserve our independence
To spread independence
To deny independence
Or somehow, all three?
Some got free in 1776
Some in 1865
Some in 1920
Some in 1945
Some in 1991
Others still fight
So one day
Independence
Is theirs, too.