Independence Day: A Song for Silent Liberty

By Vernie Lynn DeMille

 

For all the men who left their fields

And bled in battles known

To a world who watched,

Breathless, on the edge of 

Enlightenment

To see if the spark

Would catch, hold, flame

And warm the globe,

 

Honor is given. 

To men who die,

Are willing to die,

Or kill in battle,

A foreign foe.

 

While the women live

 

Alone in a field

Where they pick up the reins

And do the work

Of husbands, sons, and hands.

Alone in a home

Where food is scarce,

Comfort is absent,

And fear flavors every bite.

 

Counting the cost

Of liberty,

They are one half of a price paid,

Their sweat staining the soil

Of a nation,

 

While their currency

Goes unhonored

And the purchase of their pain

Unsung.

 

 

In a country where we celebrate

Those who lay down their lives

For a friend,

Or the hopeless,

And oppressed

We read the scripture

And see only death. 

We do not hear the silent

Who stand on sacred ground

And lay down their lives

In the long death

Of living.

Living every day

For someone else’s good.

 

So I sing,

This Independence Day,

The song of silent Liberty:

Lady of the Earth.

 

 

For the

Mother, daughter, wife

Who harnessed herself

To the implements

That broke the sod,

Planted the seed,

And nurtured the dream

Of America.

I sing for farmwives

Who sharpened ancient blades

And tilled the Earth

With sticks

When their men beat the plowshares

Into swords.

 

I sing for the women

Who bled enough on their crops

To feed nitrogen to hungry greens.

Not enough each day to die only once

But enough over years to fill a family,

A posterity,

A Homeland.

 

 

Where no sculpture, but the armatures

Covered by living clay,

Are raised to bear your name to the future. 

To my mothers,

The matriarchs who stand

As proud and brave and noble

As any soldier,

As any general,

As any man,

I honor you. 

 

I hear your song,

It lives in my heart,

And the statue to remember your sacrifice,

The bronze to carry your name,

Is carved upon my soul.

 

Lady Liberty,

Woman of faith, hope,

And charity,

May you ever be

America in me.