Compassionate and Pastoral Care

Those Honored Dead 

by Marion G. Mahoney 

“Why do you fly the flags today?” 

My grandson wants to know. 

I fly it for the graveyards 

where the countless crosses grow. 

I fly the flags for children 

whose fathers are a name. 

a half-remebered memory 

of a face within a frame. 

I fly it for the families 

of the sons and daughters lost. 

they know the price of liberty 

how terrible the cost. 

i fly the flag for veterans 

who lost their youth in blood. 

and saw their comrades fall 

in the turmoil and the mud. 

I fly it for the ones who marched 

in cadence off to war 

to close their eyes forever 

upon some foreign shore. 

I fly the flag for grief poured out 

upon a granite wall. 

the laying-on of hands that heals 

the scars within us all. 

I fly it for the sound of taps  

that melancholy tune 

that lays to rest our honored dead 

that always die too soon.