We don't choose what we write, the times we live in,
live in us.
As with this poem which was written just now.
I live in Center City Philadelphia.
In close proximity to the icons of the American Revolution,
the Liberty Bell, Independence Hall,
where the Declaration and the Constitution
were debated and signed.
Nearby is the Betsy Ross house, where there is always a woman
guide impersonating Betsy, wearing the long dress,
and the little white bonnet of the late 1700s as if she were
still among us.
And so she is.
Betsy Ross sewing.
Betsy is sitting with a pile of fabrics in her lap,
scattered on her table, folded on her shelves.
There is trouble in the streets and shouting.
She picks up the long needle with its supple thread lightly.
She raises it in the air, mutters a prayer,
pulls the needle through the fabric she has chosen:
a torn black silk, a strip of mourning cloth,
dark as a night without stars.
Beside it, she sews a strip of ragged white,
remnant of a bridal gown or a winding sheet.
Now, row by row, stitch by stitch,
she sews for hours into the night,
her face lit by the hearth's glow.
When she is done she goes out and taking the black and white
flag she has sewn.
She dips it in the blood that is running in the streets.
Now, tripping over the cobblestones, she hurries back,
dries the wet flag by the fire.
As the cock crows, the banging at her door
says they have come for the flag.
She adds a streak of blue satin.
Because it is dawn, always dawn somewhere, and now
its blue shines.
As the knocking grows louder, more insistent,
she chooses a piece of glinting gold lamé from an old ball gown.
But no, she thinks the gold will ruin the design.
As she rises to answer the door, the edge of the flag
catches in the inverse of the night's hearth fire,
smolders a moment till the cloth bursts into flames.
The wind from the open door fans them, and in a moment
it is ash, a heap of glowing gray ash.
The draft from the still open door, where the men stare.
Lifts the ashes into the air.
A gray cloud like a breath of a history expired.
And as the men curse, she slams the door like a hard sound.
At the end of a verse.
Because the milk is spilt, the wind is cold.
She has promised repair to her neighbor's quilt.
And the day grows old.
[APPLAUSE]