A family historian reads American history: variation on a poem by Brecht

A FAMILY HISTORIAN READS AMERICAN HISTORY

Who sailed the seas to the colonies?
The books all hail the Mayflower.
Do others have ancestors venturing besides?

And many slaves, so many times maligned, who sold and bought them up each time?
In which of Boston's houses, that city bustling with churches, lived those who built it?

In evenings when General Washington crossed rivers
where did the rowers go?

City Washington is full of monuments grand. Who reared them up? Over whom did Founding Fathers smile?

Old Northwest lives in folksong were all its planters gallant?
And even in Fort McHenry of the legend, the day the flag was saved,
Did dying men still cry for children and wives?

Young General Sherman plundered through the South. He alone?
Teddy rode the hills. Was there not even a cook in his army?

Franklin D. wept as his country was dusted and depressed.
Were there other tears?
Ike and the generals triumphed in the World Wars.
Who triumphed with them?


"Each page a victory,
At whose expense the victory ball?
Every ten years a great man,
Who paid the piper?

So many particulars.
So many questions."

[adaptation of an idea in a poem by Bertolt Brecht about ancient history]