You can't leave them up to God when God has left them up to us.
Orson Scott Dard

I've been thinking about elections, of course, as has my writer's group. A prompt was to write a poem about a first election memory. I hope to add other political action memory poems over the next couple of weeks.

Citizenship Lesson

1956 -so I was almost six.
Big flag flew outside polling
place, red white and blue.
Daddy held me up to see
the voting booth, kissed me,
gave me a little flag on a stick,
fluttering stars and stripes.
Both parents were excited,
confused me by saying they
were voting for the donkey
because he was a statesman
not a soldier, and America
needed a statesman after
so much war - They wanted
Stephenson not Eisenhauer,
but after the elephant won
they told me it would be all right.
The people had decided - democracy.
Mama explained voting was a right,
a responsibility I should hold dear,
and I do to this day. Lesson learned.