Different sources make different claims regarding the origin of Memorial Day. Southern hymns, Union Generals and United States Presidents all claim to have officiated the holiday that my great-grandmother from Omaha used to insist on referring to as, “Decoration Day.” While I’m still not quite clear on whether “Decoration Day” was the predecessor to our contemporary “Memorial Day” or whether they both emerged simultaneously, post Civil War, the challenge of pinpointing an origin could easily keep a team of historians busy through Memorial Day 2010 at least.

Scrolling back through my personal associations with the holiday is considerably less daunting. I was born and raised a Beltway brat. This means that the memorials for honoring the people and events of the past were a routine fixture of my perpetual present. I was six years old when my parents first took me visit the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington National Cemetery. Not only was it the first military ceremony I ever witnessed but it was the first time I ever saw real soldiers. The fact that they could stand so still and move so precisely, made the experience seem all the more supernatural. The clicks of the taps of the shoes of the round the clock guards was utterly miraculous.

Who was this soldier who remained “unknown?” No answers would satisfy me. The questions I bombarded my parents with were, in fact, almost exactly the same questions that I was recently bombarded with by eleven-year-old cousin, Max. “It’s many soldiers — not just one” I am now able to explain. “They’re from different wars and could belong to any family that lost someone.” Through the process of trying to explain I am reminded of the impossibility of defining, quantifying or comprehending a loss of this magnitude and this loss that will continue to remain.

Frankie Clogston’s Politku

All over the Mall.
Memorial City, this.
Crowded memories.

Don Bassman’s Politiku

bold untouchable
implacable impartial
honor code of Death

It’s Finality.
The whistle blows but no cheers
- must be a tie game.

The war was over.
A state of peace was declared
on the State of Mind.

Irene Gravina’s Politiku

West End hot brick walks
Hit your bare feet as you ran
Into the cool Charles

No sense to be made
Down on the grass by your grave
Green bug on my wrist

Thirteen red petals
Fallen like you and a plaque
BRONZE STAR KOREA

In the meeting house
People have space to gather
And speak openly

Tavern floor awash
With hard cider all night
At dawn dew splashed with blood

Gun across his knee
The metal cast Minuteman
Rests.  His job is done.

Our flags rim this Green
People wander in to see
Kids playing Frisbee

Musket to musket
Farmers met waves of Redcoats
As Americans

Peter Orvetti‘s Politiku

Thousands of lost souls
Fallen soldiers, orphaned young
For rights we squander

Mathilde’s Politiku

On May 4th, ever
silence, two minutes
for ALL Dutch who died.

Richard Speier’s Politiku

Ten thousand troops killed.
Honor. One million plain folks
killed in crossfires. What?

(The soldiers who die in the service to their country
deserve honor. But, typically, a war results in 10 to 100 times as
many civilian deaths as soldier deaths. During and shortly after a
war, civilians perish from crossfires — and from the deliberate or
accidental targeting of populations, from genocide, from disease, and
from starvation. Why isn’t there a holiday to remember them?)

Susanna Speier’s Politiku

Tomb of the Unknown
shoes that shine, that tap, that click
Beltway kids, watching…

To view Memorial Day Politiku as a featured Huffington Post Living selection  click here.

For coverage on Obama’s visit to Arlington National Cemetery on Memorial Day Ceremony, click here.