Valley Forge Poem by Laurence Overmire

The new nation hung in the ice of
Starvation and hunger
Makeshift shacks barely standing against
the wind
Shoes without sole
Breeches shredded without promise
of mending.

A handful of men
Conceived in liberty
Refusing to die
Or surrender a dream
Dedicated to the proposition
Those self-evident, inalienable rights.

Theirs was the courage
The fire lit, in a bleak
Frozen world
Never to be extinguished
The blood of generations
Flowing from their wounds
Forever indebted
To the very rags
That held them
Together.

~ Laurence Overmire

(Previously published in Poetfest Anthology, Summer 2000; Honor and Remembrance, Indelible Mark Publishing,2007)