The Anthem
Popular Poems Topics for You.
The anthem always finds me where I'm tender—
the particular note that sends the shiver through—
something in the melody that carries
more than music, more than memory knew.
It is the voices of the ones who sang it first
in circumstances I can barely imagine,
in the fight for something they could almost see—
the country still becoming, still in passion.
I stand for it not out of obligation
but because the thing it stands for asks for standing,
because some things deserve the body's attention,
the full, unironic, formal understanding.
feelthewords.com
The anthem always finds me where I'm tender—
the particular note that sends the shiver through—
something in the melody that carries
more than music, more than memory knew.
It is the voices of the ones who sang it first
in circumstances I can barely imagine,
in the fight for something they could almost see—
the country still becoming, still in passion.
I stand for it not out of obligation
but because the thing it stands for asks for standing,
because some things deserve the body's attention,
the full, unironic, formal understanding.
