A Memorial

I passed another memorial today, this time in the heart of San Francisco, and I stopped to respect. It is the Veterans Memorial, sandwiched between an opera house and performing arts center. An inscription, the poem The Young Dead Soldiers by Archibald MacLeish, is carved into the black marble.

The young dead soldiers do not speak.

Nevertheless, they are heard in the still houses: who has not heard them?

They have a silence that speaks for them at night when the clock counts.

They say: We were young. We have died. Remember us.

They say: We have done what we could but until it is finished it is not done.

They say: We have given our lives but until it is finished no one can know what our lives gave.

They say: Our deaths are not ours; they are yours; they will mean what you make them.

They say: Whether our lives and our deaths were for peace and a new hope or for nothing we cannot say; it is you who must say this.

They say: We leave you our deaths. Give them their meaning.

We were young, they say. We have died: remember us.