The Fourth of July in Hensenville (America celebrates freedom)

[Tracy Mitchell]

Disembodied head.

Yes, I am stymied too.  

Still, very good write, L.

 

[Dave]

At first read I thought the last line worked well given that the rest of the poem carried enough ambiguity. Not so sure now after Tracy's comment. Indeed, however, of feelign lucky for being free in any given country is illusory. First of all, so many people are not entirely free. What is the proper definition of free? Why does the definition run via the idea of nation? Many countries are free but contain local suppression. 

There are hidden tensions too since the very freedom that we so love and admire that kills these smaller communities. By the way this issue is not at all purely an American one. In Germany they do a reasonable job of protecting communities, at least in what was West Germany, but much of regional France or Spain or Britain is moribund.

Thus, back to the poem I think the last line could either be more ambiguous or scrapped: something that removes the sentimentality and the tortuousness of trying to know what it actually means in reality.

[Dave]

The last line surely is also tautology: we are lucky to be free to wave flags to celebrate being free to wave flags to celebrate being free ad infinitum.
In line two of the last stanza grammatically surely 'they' can only refer to the flags and not the people since crowd is singular. 
 

[Colm Roe]

I think the last line should stay.
I know what Dave is saying, but it's something that everyone associates specifically with America.
We can all wave flags (and feel free), but not like them

[indar]

Time to repost this one as the irony of the last lines increases.