Friday evening I took my Stars and Stripes in from the front porch as I do every night, but everything felt different and each movement was conscious as I realized I might not put it out again.

Yesterday morning I came to some sad clarity as I thought through the Pledge of Allegiance:

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, 

…and to the Republic for which it stands:

unfortunately,  the Republic for which it stands is in tatters – separation of powers only an ideal; representative government a Potemkin facade; We, the People…just a memory

…one nation:

hardly, having been thoroughly Balkanized by the ruling class whose goal is buttressed by minimal and selective enforcement of immigration laws

...under God:

Not.

By the way, it was In 1954, in response to the Communist threat of the times, (that) President Eisenhower encouraged Congress to add the words “under God,” creating the 31-word pledge we say today. (I don’t remember the White House being lit up with crosses the following day)

 ...indivisible:

that which was thus described no longer exists as such. Its Constitution is no longer a practical reference. Its history is being dismantled. Its foundations are untended – and that doesn’t matter as much as we might think since there is little left for them to support

…with liberty and justice for all:

except for non-minorities, the Baltimore Six,  officers who are drummed out of the military because they serve faithfully according to their oaths, American employees made to train their foreign replacements, anyone targeted by the IRS, etc. 

It’s pretty simple in my thoughts at the moment. Flying the Stars and Stripes can surely still be done as a memorial and a reflection of history but it cannot reasonably be done as reflecting a present reality to celebrate or defend.

This flag was not created to just be a memory. It was a vibrant representation of something wonderful, something unique, something worth dying for. Personally, I will not fly my flag as a memorial.

Can it be flown as it was flown in the night its song was written?  Can it be flown as a fragile, fluttering symbol of what might be? Can it be flown in memoriam, in the way that my late husband’s yard-work jacket still hangs where he left it in the garage?

Before departing from a ravaged Washington, British soldiers had arrested Dr. William Beanes of Upper Marlboro, Maryland, on the charge that he was responsible for the arrests of British stragglers and deserters during the campaign to attack the nation’s capital.  They subsequently imprisoned him on a British warship.

Friends of Dr. Beanes asked Georgetown lawyer Francis Scott Key to join John S. Skinner, the U.S. government’s agent for dealing with British forces in the Chesapeake, and help secure the release of the civilian prisoner.  They were successful; however, the British feared that Key and Skinner would divulge their plans for attacking Baltimore, and so they detained the two men aboard a truce ship for the duration of the battle. Key thus became an eyewitness to the bombardment of Fort McHenry.

When he saw “by the dawn’s early light” of September 14, 1814, that the American flag soared above the fort, Key knew that Fort McHenry had not surrendered.  Moved by the sight, he began to compose a poem on the back of a letter he was carrying.

https://www.si.edu/encyclopedia_si/nmah/starflag.htm

For 200 years we have had, in diminishing form, what he was hoping for that night: he was holding on to hope that the baby nation would live, they were breathing life into the body of a struggling infant.

In contrast with that birth of a nation, we may now be hearing the agonal breathing that accompanies the death of a republic.

This from a hospice document re: that agonal breathing:

(the patient) may appear to be gasping for air

This is another common symptom seen when death is imminent. You may notice that your loved one is“gasping”or breathing with their mouth open.

This respiratory pattern is called“agonal breathing.”

Sometimes this pattern only lasts for two or three breaths. Other times it may continue for longer periods of time. (link)

The last twenty-hours has been a turning point in my perception of my front porch flag..

Maybe that perception will fade and re-orient. If it doesn’t, I will remember it as the day I clearly saw, in the evening against an Oregon sky, the road that is taking us where we are headed.

Oh! say, can you see, by the dawn’s early light,
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars, through the perilous fight,
O’er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming?
And the rocket’s red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof thro’ the night that our flag was still there.
Oh! say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave,
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

*(“Ramparts,” in case you don’t know, are the protective walls or other elevations that surround a Fort. The first stanza asks a question. The second gives an answer. )

On the shore, dimly seen thro’ the mist of the deep,
Where the foe’s haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o’er the towering steep.
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning’s first beam,
In full glory reflected, now shines on the stream.
‘Tis the star-spangled banner. Oh! long may it wave,
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

*(“The towering steep” is again, the ramparts. The bombardment has failed, and the British can do nothing more but sail away, their mission a failure. In the third stanza, I feel Key allows himself to gloat over the American triumph. In the aftermath of the bombardment, Key probably was in no mood to act otherwise. During World War II, when the British were our staunchest allies, this third stanza was not sung. However, I know it, so here it is)

And where is that band who so vauntingly swore,
That the havoc of war and the battle’s confusion
A home and a country should leave us no more?
Their blood has washed out their foul footstep’s pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave,
From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave,
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave,
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

*(The fourth stanza, a pious hope for the future, should be sung more slowly than the other three, and with even deeper feeling. )

Oh! Thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand,
Between their loved homes and the war’s desolation,
Blest with vict’ry and peace, may the Heav’n – rescued land,
> Praise the Pow’r that hath made and preserved us a nation.
Then conquer we must, for our cause is just,
And this be our motto – “In God is our trust.”
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave,
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

Does the Republic “for which it stands” still live?

If the Republic the flag represents is no longer living, shall we acknowledge that?

*https://www.annin.com/resources_national_anthem.asp