I Blog Poetry and Prose

Soundtrak of You Life Challenge: Day 9- Star Spangled Banner

Jamál (Beauty), 3 Mulk (Dominion) 176 B.E. - Sunday, February 9, 2020

Artist: The Academy Choirs
Title: The Star Spangled Banner
U.S. National Anthem

Lyrics1

Oh, say, can you see? By the dawn's early light
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming;
Whose broad stripes and bright stars, through the perilous fight,
O'er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming.
And the rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air.
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there:
Oh, say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave?
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

On the shore, dimly seen through the mists of the deep,
Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o'er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam,
In fully glory reflected now shines in the stream:
'Tis the star-spangled banner! Oh, long may it wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
That the havoc of war and the battle's confusion
A home and a country should leave us no more?
Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps' pollution!
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave:
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

Oh, thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved home and the war's desolation!
Blest with victory and peace, may the heav'n-rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation!
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: "In God is our trust":
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave. We love it so much, I think you do too.

I don't very many clear images of my father. I remember a tall man, who drink coffee, sometimes with cream and sometimes black. I remember he worked at the Blackwell Zinc Smelter (the same place Grandpa Frank worked). I have a foggy memory of him carrying me on his back, and of setting on the front porch steps with him.

During World War II, Daddy served in the Army Air Corp--now the U.S. Air Force--and stationed at Nellis Air Force Base in Las Vegas, Nevada. At that time Mom worked at the County Hospital--now University Medical Center on West Charleston Ave.--as a maid. I remember Mom telling me she took a bust from Nellis to the County Hospital.

His name was Melvin Fay Darbe, he was born on a farm in Kansas on March 26, 1921, died someplace in Kansas on April 14, 1998, and is buried in the Lincoln Cemetery in Lincoln County, Kansas. I found out about my father's death when I did an internet search for him. Daddy is the child setting on the plow horse in the above photo, the man holding him on the horse is his father, Grandpa John.

Daddy is one of the missing links in my life. I never saw him again after my parents divorce. One of my biggest regrets is that I never got to say good-bye to Daddy before he died. Now the only thing I can do is pray for the progress of his soul in the next world.

"O Lord! In this Most Great Dispensation Thou dost accept the intercession of children in behalf of their parents. This is one of the special infinite bestowals of this Dispensation. Therefore, O Thou kind Lord, accept the request of this Thy servant at the threshold of Thy singleness and submerge his father in the ocean of Thy grace, because this son hath arisen to render Thee service and is exerting effort at all times in the pathway of Thy love. Verily, Thou art the Giver, the Forgiver and the Kind!"

'Abdu’l-Bahá2

Footnotes
1  https://www.metrolyrics.com/the-star-spangled-banner-lyrics-the-national-anthem-...
2  Baha'i Prayers: General Prayer for Families