April 8 - Flying My Own Flag

Flying My Own Flag

I'm like a lot of people, when something awful happens
   To my home, my family, my nation, my world.
My first impulse is to hoist a flag in solidarity.
   A banner over me and mine and yours unfurled.
With pipes and drums and marching brothers in a line.
   We have mourned together, while pipers moaned and skirled.
Amazing Grace gets woven deep into our common grief;
   A blood red river flowing, sweeping, self-elucidation swirled,

Our flags define us. I'm flying four of them right now.
   A nation's and two state's flags and one flag a navy jack.
The defunct Texas Navy ensign flies beside my doorpost like 
   The ratty sailor's queue that even now hangs down my back.
I've fancied myself a sailor ever since I was a kid. 
   Swashbuckling from the oak tree "masts" out in the back;
Hanging mama's sheets from trees. Then later running up,
   Into the leafy canopy, my very own and private navy jack.
  
Finally I set real sails on Texas lakes and taught myself the knack,
   Of coaxing my ersatz frigate home upon a whisper of a breeze,
Laugh if you will. I'm not alone in flying private flags.
   We each and every one of us sail day to day on secret seas.
You cannot sail the oceans of experiences we've navigated
   Without you've collected a veritable cargo of idiosyncracies.
Renaissance Fairs, garden clubs, Scouts, reenactors, gamers 
   Hoisting banners, trailing would-be glories yet to seize.

I fly my own flags, though you may not see them hanging
   From my porch, nor even folded away inside some chest.
I, like most of us, may never hang my pennant on the mast
   But that will not preclude me looking to utter East and West,
Until I find a coat of arms and the perfect flag that suits me. 
   I'll never have a castle, nor an escort riding four abreast.
I'll never have a retinue, nor a navy of my own.
   But someday I will find my flag before I gain my rest.

© 2019 by Tom King