Remembering JFK

Today is the 45th anniversary of President John F Kennedy's death in Dallas. I was almost 6 years old, and remember the event, the images, the mood, the tremendous sadness well. I pray we as a nation never have to go through the same again.

As a tribute, I offer Robert Frost's poem, "The Gift Outright." Frost read this poem at JFK's inaugural in 1961 instead of the one he had written especially for the event, called "Dedication." From the JFK Library:

"Frost had planned to read a typed copy of the poem during President Kennedy’s Inauguration, but due to sun glare reflecting off the snow, he was unable to read his own draft. Instead, he recited The Gift Outright from memory. On the backside of the framed poem, First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy wrote in pencil, “For Jack. First thing I had framed to be put in your office. First thing to be hung there.” "

The Gift Outright

The land was ours before we were the land's.

She was our land more than a hundred years

Before we were her people. She was ours

In Massachusetts, in Virginia,

But we were England's, still colonials,

Possessing what we still were unpossessed by,

Possessed by what we now no more possessed.

Something we were withholding made us weak

Until we found out that it was ourselves

We were withholding from our land of living,

And forthwith found salvation in surrender.

Such as we were we gave ourselves outright

(The deed of gift was many deeds of war)

To the land vaguely realizing westward,

But still unstoried, artless, unenhanced,

Such as she was, such as she would become.

~ Robert Frost, 1942

Rest in peace, JFK.