Quoting DiCatLV:

This would have been more appropriate for Veterans' Day, but this is for the 4th of July and all those who defend our freedom.

The Price

Boxes of innocence – graves –
lined up – row upon row upon row—
white scepters arising
out of the fields where once
General Robert E. Lee
looked over his plantation's summer harvests.

This is not the white innocence of cotton,
clouded by sweat drawn from black mens' backs,
who, broken into enslaved submission, worked
to clothe a nation, to feed factories for England's fabric mills.

Nor are these white scepters of hope,
crosses pushing up and out of the ground
against a stark barren sky on a grey February afternoon
on a cold snowy day where we have come to bury my father-in-law.

This is the whiteness of innocence:
generations of the young laid to rest,
side by side, war upon war,
dividing up the lots of a once mighty plantation
reduced to shielding the dead,
whose acres –
once fine green fields of waving tobacco and corn –
now only harvest pain, fear, retribution, and love.

And this – this is the ultimate price of freedom.

.

c. D K F Compton

Note: After the War Between the States, Robert E. Lee’s plantation Arlington, originally owned by his wife’s family, was seized by the U.S. Government and became Arlington Cemetery, where all soldiers who have served in war may be buried. The "Official" order establishing the cemetery was actually signed by the Secretary of War on June 15, 1864. William Henry Christman (1843-May 13, 1864), a Union soldier, was the first soldier buried in Arlington National Cemetery. He died in a Washington area hospital and was subsequently buried there. He lies in Section 27, which was originally The Lee Rose Garden.

This would have been more appropriate for Veterans' Day, but this is for the 4th of July and all those who defend our freedom.

The Price

Boxes of innocence – graves –
lined up – row upon row upon row—
white scepters arising
out of the fields where once
General Robert E. Lee
looked over his plantation's summer harvests.

This is not the white innocence of cotton,
clouded by sweat drawn from black mens' backs,
who, broken into enslaved submission, worked
to clothe a nation, to feed factories for England's fabric mills.

Nor are these white scepters of hope,
crosses pushing up and out of the ground
against a stark barren sky on a grey February afternoon
on a cold snowy day where we have come to bury my father-in-law.

This is the whiteness of innocence:
generations of the young laid to rest,
side by side, war upon war,
dividing up the lots of a once mighty plantation
reduced to shielding the dead,
whose acres –
once fine green fields of waving tobacco and corn –
now only harvest pain, fear, retribution, and love.

And this – this is the ultimate price of freedom.

.

c. D K F Compton

Note: After the War Between the States, Robert E. Lee’s plantation Arlington, originally owned by his wife’s family, was seized by the U.S. Government and became Arlington Cemetery, where all soldiers who have served in war may be buried. The "Official" order establishing the cemetery was actually signed by the Secretary of War on June 15, 1864. William Henry Christman (1843-May 13, 1864), a Union soldier, was the first soldier buried in Arlington National Cemetery. He died in a Washington area hospital and was subsequently buried there. He lies in Section 27, which was originally The Lee Rose Garden.