1776

It started All at once.

One shot.

One breath.

And we began,

Building America with two hands;

Fisting mud and sticks to Stand for walls

And curling black pines

Over our heads for a roof.

It was inelegant and stubborn

But it was ours and we would defend it.

1783

America was just a shed really,

Barely able to house it's intended

13

But we formed stiff white windows

and our door had kept the British out

So we took pride in our work well won.

1787

Everything was iced-over mania outside

But within our new-cut walls

We stoked the fire,

Warming the air with promises we

Swore To keep

1801

We outgrew our hodgepodge home

And pushed west word for space to flourish.

Our working will drove great stakes into the ground;

Planning new towers and levels of America.

The unfurled stretches of our country

Pushed others away and,

Nailed trust to the front door as a warning.

The modest walls we had fought to keep Bloomed buttresses and

Gates of stone grew ornate with

Arrogant flourishes of

Ill enforced freedom.

1861

The fortress we had built so fast

Began to tilt and turn on its foundation.

In our haste, we forgot cement in the making of our nation.

We worked instead with the broken backbones of black Americans.

(A poor substitute for what we should have used)

Our country will not sit plum across the earth,

A crooked floor to match our crooked worth.

1863

We grew again,

Not in size this time,

But in citizens:

Our greatest claim to justest

And the original structure of America

Is, perhaps,

That year.

For no matter how long we stand and glare and fight

that time, we were right.

1916

And we began again,

The whole world did, opening their eyes as we did ours.

it was not meant to happen,

This war of weapons that killed blindly all who spoke.

This was insane.

Our home was quivering before the end.

But there was an end,

And all was forgotten with the new coat of paint.

1941

The battles were back with the gruesome stains of war

Our newly painted outside split from slats,

Color peeled backward from the walls

In horrid strips of split off soldiers.

Nothing was fair, or clean.

And our proud mansion of a country shifted from vivid now

To the wispy nostalgia of yesterday.

We won the war on paper but,

The scratching of a pen does nothing for the dead.

1941

America was tall and bright again.

Our windows wide with newly installed expectation.

This was a race and we meant to win.

The color of our pride when we shattered the sky was blinding blue.

Nothing was beyond us as we touched the great finish-line;

Smeared on the sky like a silver thumbprint.

2001

Some one attacked us with our own winged progress.

The sky split red and our lofty era of self-assured invincibility was gone.

Nothing changed but the glue we used to repair our broken roof.

But we knew now,

The secrets out-

2016

-We will not live forever.

Maybe we'll survive another war.

(Unlikely with our dreams intact)

And perhaps our minds will grow more sure,

Our walls gain the strength they lack.

But time sweeps on and, just as mighty Rome once fell

Someday we will live out our share of victories and our home

Shall be naught but a shell.

So I ask only this of you my friend,

Make America a memory that the world will hold

As good, and find more precious than gold.

A/n so, it's no secret that this year was a bit of political war, lets just keep a grip on the american sperit ya?