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Down in the Dirt, v155
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A Confederate Flag

Daniel David

A confederate flag snaps, a shifting wind demands attention,
an incongruent sentiment “the south shall rise again,” but this far
north, along the shore of Erie? I almost see Canada. He’s stuck
this banner in the back of his truck, brandishes his ideology, drives
this around town as if giving his dog a ride. From a window where
I get my car fixed, country music droning in the garage (I’m sick
of this twang) I see he’s parked in the lot. I’m curious, who’s
waving stars and bars. Just a thoughtless kid, not much older than
my son, comes to get a tire fixed. Who taught him to articulate
this language of hate? I wonder, if offered, would he don
a brown shirt, pull on jackboots, sieg heil, sieg heil, sieg heil?
Suddenly a shudder, my jaw sets, then my rage, here, here is my
rage, I shall not deny this rage, no longer dormant, finally lava
forced to surface, no longer tolerant of intolerance, no longer
a gracious diplomat, no longer a monk of the Middle Way,
no longer circumspect, absorbing opposing points of view. I’m
furious. Now I pace a sickroom where I grieve the loss of love,
the loss of compassion. Simply a silly boy, this is where I fear
it begins, the tyrants, Hitler, Mussolini, Tojo, Stalin, come again,
and again. Name them! Name them! In stone, in bronze, we list
our dead, our beloved, but our memory is faulty, our amnesia
of indifference. Where is the monument to murderers, this edifice
we must skirt, an inconvenience, each day? The boy has this flag.
As he passes, I turn my back to him, only malevolence for him,
not even a nod for this neighbor. This, this is the onset of tragedy.



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