What is Memorial Day?

© 1998 by Jim Hutchinson
Mays Landing,NJ



Is Memorial Day a Hardware sale? A good price on a garden pail ?
Did my buddies give their limbs, lives, and sinew
For chicken, stakes, and barbecue ?
For The Coward to place a wreath on sacred ground,
While my comrades are crippled and wheelchair bound
Did my buddies die in that living green hell.
For endless rows of cars to sell ?
For drunks, accidents and long traffic jams,
Did my buddies perish in Vietnam .
So while young men drool over the Memorial Day Queen
I ll remember my buddies -The Living,The Dead and The In - Between.

Sources: http://www.usmemorialday.org/poetry/whatis.htm
                http://www.coolholidaygraphics.com/memorialday/comments/memorialday32.jpg