On Memorial Day in the Morning
When I was a boy on Memorial Day in the morning
We always went and watched the parade go by;
And then we hustled along by short-cut sidewalks
To arrive at the cemetery first and stand
Where we could see the bugler play the taps
And the riflemen fire to heaven before we scrambled
To salvage the empty shells that their noise left over.
It wasn’t Memorial Day without a band
And a flag and a flag and a flag for our silent honor
While boys remembered a tale they had never heard,
But felt in their bones as a blend of sadness and glory
Requiring more than a picnic to celebrate.
We always went and watched the parade go by;
And then we hustled along by short-cut sidewalks
To arrive at the cemetery first and stand
Where we could see the bugler play the taps
And the riflemen fire to heaven before we scrambled
To salvage the empty shells that their noise left over.
It wasn’t Memorial Day without a band
And a flag and a flag and a flag for our silent honor
While boys remembered a tale they had never heard,
But felt in their bones as a blend of sadness and glory
Requiring more than a picnic to celebrate.
May, 28, 1960, The Saturday Evening Post
Leave a comment 
May 16, 2009 
Fiction & Poetry
The Little Miller Attack
Living in a small town, you can never really escape your past—a gripping new story from an emerging literary voice.
Death and Ms. FitzSimons
When a man with terminal cancer goes off into the snowy woods to meet death, he finds more than he bargained for.
Miss Temptation
A soldier just back from Korea disrupts a small town's daily ritual—and makes a pretty girl cry—in Kurt Vonnegut's well-loved short story.
Treasures of the Kurt Vonnegut Memorial Library
Examine some of Kurt Vonnegut's personal artifacts that are on display at the Kurt Vonnegut Memorial Library in downtown Indianapolis.
The No-Talent Kid
Nothing could shake Walter's determination to get into the marching band. So how could his conductor tell him how misplaced his ambition was?
^ ADVERTISEMENT ^
