Happy Birthday America
- brucepressler
- 2 days ago
- 1 min read
President Ford
nearing sixty-three
said nothing
about himself
no banners,
no borrowed spotlight
the nation came first
he stepped quietly
into the bicentennial
through a church
across the street
from power
no spectacle
just a beginning
then the lift of blades,
a helicopter
cutting the air
toward Valley Forge
not for the 38th president
but for the first
for Washington,
who waited out a winter
with cold hands
and thinner hope
when the country
was barely a promise
and everything
might have been lost