liberty

She is Liberty
And she comes to rescue me
Hope, faith her vanity
The greatest gift is gold

U2 released In God's Country in 1987 (the link is to the video). In the 1999 film Three Kings, a sardonic look at American motives in the first Gulf War, this was the song on when the end credits rolled.

Having done the whole tourist thing with Roshan, having had to pass through cattle shed airport security just to get to see the Statue, the song kept playing in my head. Nearly twenty years later, unfortunately, it still makes perfect sense. (Even if U2 don't anymore).

Back at the South Ferry dock, the picture was fortitious, a decisive moment. Those cranes on the Jersey shore, they could be oil rigs. The sun sets sanguine. Those famous four lines of Emma Lazarus's sonnet sell on eight dollar mugs. You can't climb the statue anymore, since 9/11.

Naked flame
She stands with a naked flame