It was a hollow voice. Such a cold voice I barely heard carried across the veil between us. Even in faintness, it arrived as the crisp sound water makes in the stream of a cave.
“You stand at the foot of my grave,” it whispered, “but I cannot determine what I see. I have played my part and can ask this same of you, in whose charge now the country I served falls: Do you dwell on your duties as I attended mine?
“Do you elevate men and women who deserve to command my loyalty? Is this America where I rest, made yet today from many into one, or has it fallen to division and wretched selfishness? Do you build on the sacrifice I have sown into this hallowed ground?”
Then came another, as if from even greater distance: “Are you instead content to only lap up the gravy of liberty? That, you know, is your freedom mixed with the blood of heroes!”
The first returned, now more solemn: “My part is done and yours remains. I know the price of what I bought. Generation by generation here in this silent earth they came as I have now. Row on row, in death as we stood in life: together.”
“We are watching,” more and more of the voices agreed. They all murmured their accordance: “We are watching. We are watching.”
*****
May it be for you a peaceful Memorial Day Weekend and an observant Monday.
Choose to love, -DA
Vae Obscurum 