The poem explains why the speaker flies the American flag on Memorial Day - to honor the countless soldiers who sacrificed their lives in service of their country. The flag represents those who never returned home from war, as well as the families and communities impacted by their loss. It serves as a reminder of the high cost of defending liberty and protecting the nation.

1. Those Honored Dead
-Marion G. Mahoney
Memorial Day 2013

2. “Why do you fly the flag today?”
My grandson wants to know

3. I fly it for the graveyards
Where the countless crosses grow

4. I fly the flag for children
Whose fathers are a name

5. A half-remembered memory
Of a face within a frame

6. I fly it for the families
Of sons and daughters lost

7. They know the price of liberty
How terrible the cost

8. I fly the flag for veterans
Who lost their youth in blood

9. And saw their comrades slaughtered
In the carnage and the mud

10. I fly it for those who marched
In cadence off to war

11. To close their eyes forever
Upon some foreign shore

12. I fly the flag for grief poured out
Upon a granite wall

13. The laying-on of hands that heals
The scars within us all

14. I fly it for the sound of Taps
That melancholy tune

15. That lays to rest those honored dead
Who always die too soon.