Four Hundred Years or So

The country itself is approaching 
Only 245 years
But its history goes back farther,
Beyond Jamestown, certainly,
But let’s just spend
A moment
On that one,
Around which I have a memory
Of a movie
In which someone says,
“Let not America go wrong in her first hour.”

It might be said
That everything that has followed
Has been a reiteration 
Of that plea.

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