The flubs and goofs, the pranks and spoofs, their telling oft-inflated.īut given time let stories turn to things that really mattered, Of derring-do, heroics too, the battles that we fought.īut then recall with laughter all the mishaps we created, Go start with all the bad guys – ones we lost and ones we caught, To now and then tell stories of the races that I won. To raise a glass in memory of all the good I’ve done My duty done, I leave you one, a lingering request. That fell to earth like angel’s tears amid the sad refrain.Īmazing Grace, how sweet the sound, the notes hung on the air,Ī last goodbye, a muffled cry, a word of whispered prayer.Īnd as beneath the flag I go to take my final rest, In silent rows of blue and gold they stood beneath the rain To my brothers and sisters in blue, stay safe and God bless this one is for you. Given the state of today’s public discourse, I thought that the time had come to do so, for whatever small measure of thanks these words might convey. Since I wrote "Reporting from the Front," I have long thought I should pen the “blue version” – a tribute written specifically for the men and women of law enforcement, whom I love so dearly. I saw a photo of an officer who had it inked across his forearm. That sentence caught fire through the law enforcement community and now appears on everything from coffee mugs and bumper stickers to T-shirts and hoodies. The poem closed with the lines “And maybe just remind the few, if ill of us they speak, that we are all that stands between the monsters and the weak.” In 2006 I wrote another military-themed poem called “ Reporting from the Front,” which brought the second unexpected surprise of this journey. Schools included “A Soldier’s Christmas” and some of my subsequent poems in patriotic productions and in countless support missions to benefit troops and their families.
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