Flags of all nations—
Be duly lower’d at Sunset.²
We Rent the banners
With Seam and Gash!³
Flags are bits of colored cloth that
States use to shrink-wrap our Minds.⁴
White Flags choke on national anthems.⁵
Banners flout the sky and fan our people cold.⁶
What is the sense of giving a boundary to all this?
Of giving it a name and ceasing to love where the
Name ceases to apply? If Love of one’s country is
Hate of one’s uncountry, then it’s a bad thing.⁷
We have no country to fight for—
Our country is the Earth—
We are citizens of the World!⁸
We’re fed up with national colors—
The pigment of Life is what we want.⁹
Blown banners change to Wings …¹⁰
¹ E.E. Cummings, I Sing of Olaf Glad and Big
² Walt Whitman, Crossing Brooklyn Ferry
³ John Greenleaf Whittier, Barbara Frietchie
⁴ Arundhati Roy, Come September
⁵ Efe Paul Azino, The Defiance of Flowers
⁶ William Shakespeare, Macbeth
⁷ Ursula K. Le Guin, The Left Hand of Darkness
⁸ Eugene Debs, In Whose War Shall I Fight?
⁹ Tadeusz Borowski tr. Rafferty, Natchez, & Pioro, Project: Flag
¹⁰ Wallace Stevens, To an Old Philosopher in Rome