Written by Mitch Albom, and published in the Detroit News/Detroit Free Press, September 23, 2001.

That our flag was still there through the gloom and despair, hanging on porches, flapping in schoolyards, painted on cheeks of young mothers whose husbands are leaving to face the rockets’ red glare, bombs bursting in air and our flag is still there.

Through weeks of despair,
that flag was still there.
When death came on silver wings
towers in ruins, bodies in flames,
when up from the ashes
a dark smoke arose and lingering there,
like a child unaware,
waiting till mother or father came home
but they are never coming home
Hearts everywhere,
offered a prayer,
and in the midst of that gray rubble square
a flag was still there.

Did you even know two weeks ago
where your stars were buried?
Where your stripes were stowed?
Behind boxes and crates?
Behind mowers and rakes?
So taken for granted this symbol of freedom,
tucked behind charcoal and snow boots and rusty old bicycles, but. . . when the call came to show that we care we all did the same, our flags were right there.

It has not always been the
most respected cloth
Burned in protest mocked and ignored
But when, as a nation the time comes to mourn
at half-staff it flies from morning till dawn
And when we are stirred as a people of might
it soars high on ships It says
“We are right in this fight, we are right”
It pulls out of port; it augurs “Beware”.
The flag that’s still there.

Those broad stripes and bright stars are now hanging in bars and diners and Kmarts and windows of cars.
We’ve even heard stories
of seeing Old Glory tattooed on arms, or stitched through the night, then purchased on sight.  When this war began the first thing we ran out of, in fact the only thing
that this great nation ran short of, was flags.     Flags everywhere
And the flag is still there.

Oceans of banners now, armies of flags,
sea to shining sea’s worth of flags.
We wave them at baseball games,
during the “stretch,” we wave them at cameras, at airports, at friends.
Never before have we seen such array, the country bedecked in a single display.
It’s like one shirt, one blouse, one pair of shoes red, white and blues.
It’s all that you wear – the flag, that’s still there.

I never did feel the strength of those words
that Mr. Key wrote, often sung but not heard – “Gave proof through the night” that she was still there.  What a wonderful, comforting image we share.
We cherish it now, it shows that we care,

that our hearts will repair.
And through this despair
this much we can swear,
we bend but don’t break,
we are united, these states.
Look outside — a new dawn’s early light
And our flag is still there.