Unfinished Business
The boy returns from war to see
A man he never knew he’d be;
The bathroom mirror speaks its truth,
Reflecting change – and loss of youth.
He took up arms, those years before -
A promise took him off to war.
This small town kid of subtle charm
Has seen a world of fire and harm;
Has met the monsters, down in Hell,
And now, in time, may choose to tell
Or, may find silence as his friend,
Who blocks the hurt that has no end.
But: time enough for war on pain –
The family waits: he’s home again!
An autumn sun, on fiery leaf
Conceals the signs of compound grief,
The boy-man, hailed by friend and kin
Has not yet won the war within.
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As well -
The Young Veterans
When we forged Pappy’s ‘X’ on the quivering page,
And secretly scribbled ‘good-bye’,
In the wavery note that we hastily wrote,
Not a one of us thought we might die.
The rites we endured in the Passage to Man
Are mem’ries – the most of them good,
How little we knew! How quickly we grew!
As our Chiefs saw things go as they should.
With the movement of years so much changes in flux,
And the good and the bad pass away –
In a dead calm our spanker droops down as we anchor,
And dreams whisper ‘round at the quay,
We were quite old enough for ‘Anchors Away,’
But too young to drink to the foam,
And an item of note: we were too young to vote –
But might freely on battlefields roam.
So, Shipmate, take this for a lesson of worth,
After combat, the rules seem a pain:
It’s damned hard – no fun - to fight, but when done
Be treated as kids once again….
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© Steven C, Myers
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