Dear Editor:

With Veterans Day approaching, I would like to commemorate the life and work of American Poet Laureate and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Richard Wilbur, who died recently. His poems and translations establish him as one of the great poets of contemporary American literature; his courageous service as a combat infantry soldier in Italy, France, and Germany in the Second World War adds depth and authority to his words.

Rereading him the other day, I was struck by a section of “On Freedom’s Ground: A Cantata,” in which he urges us to “Mourn for the dead who died for this country/…Say that they mattered, alive and after; / That they gave us time to become what we could.”  The stanza following these lines reminds us of our responsibility as heirs to this inestimable gift:

“Grieve for the ways in which we betrayed them,

How we robbed their graves of a reason to die:

The tribes pushed west and the treaties broken,

The image of God on the auction block,

The immigrant scorned, and the striker beaten,

The vote denied to liberty’s daughters.

From all that has shamed us, what can we salvage?

Be proud at least that we know we were wrong,

That we need not lie, that our books are open.”

If only the current commander-in-chief, who literally wraps himself in the flag and peddles shallow patriotism at his nationalist rallies, would read these verses and take them to heart!

Bill Hammond

Trevett