hale

memorial day is for remembrance
of soldiers who died
serving their country.

“hale” is both a description
of a person in a state of robustness
and a surname.

george washington needed a volunteer to spy
behind british lines and get intel on the brits.
captain nathan hale alone stepped up.

hale was a bright kid, a yale graduate at eighteen,
a schoolteacher at twenty. now he was a spy.
alas, he was soon recognized and ratted out.

a british soldier who witnessed hale’s death
wrote in his diary “he behaved
with great composure and resolution.”

on the gallows he supposedly said
“i only regret, that i have but one life,
to lose for my country.”

but his brother enoch asked around
and was told that nathan gave a longer,
spirited speech,

and said among other things that
if he had ten THOUSAND lives,
he would lay them ALL down for his country.

today, America’s memorial day, I think
of that bright, patriotic kid of twenty-one,
and of his courage and dignity.