We've Forgotten
A poem by Micah Boswell · heritage · faith
They bent their backs beneath medieval cathedrals, that never honored their names. Paid in bread crusts and silence, they kissed the hem of priests who called suffering holy. They didn't question. There was no time.
They walked beside oxen, grew old at twenty-eight. Buried children without names. Worked land they could never own. Gave thanks anyway.
Because faith was all they were allowed to keep.
And then, boats to a strange land. Names scribbled at port by men who didn’t care how to spell it. They became Americans by surviving the line.
They made cities out of sweat, lit furnaces, picked tobacco, opened stores that sold nothing but hope.
They built things. With hands. With aching backs. With hymns they translated into whatever English they could manage.
We forget them. Because we don’t kneel in the dirt anymore. We forget how a flag once meant no bishop and no baron. Just breath.
We think freedom is comfort. But it was never that. It was choosing your own hunger. It was standing up in a country that didn’t bow to kings or priests.
They loved this place not because it was perfect, but because it didn’t ask them to be less.
And we... we've forgotten how heavy that kind of love is.