4 July 2025

By Philip Kuepper

I wave the flag. I transform
the flag into a wave.
Its stripes are rivers:
Mississippi, Missouri,
Colorado, Columbia,
Connecticut, Hudson;
its stars, mountains:
the Rockies, the Sierras,
piercing the mornings;
the Smokies, the Blue Ridge,
hues of dusk;
the Appalachians,
Appalachians, Appalachians,
echoing themselves
north to south, south to north.
They parallel the flow
of the Mississippi; America,
a wave of democracy;
the flag, a wave
when blows a wind; America,
the land of a people
ever being transformed,
a people, like the flag,
become a wave,
rising, cresting, breaking, rising,
endlessly, endlessly.

(12 June 2025)