May I, in a moment of reverence whose source I know not,
Tell you a little tale about heroes grown old? Who came
And went, winning life when most left it -- winning
The prize called Old Age. Such a brass ring it is! I wonder
If the painted horses they rode, pulsed by battle and pounding
Into unknown hells of many makings, knew they’d grasp
And win it? May I tell you of these men? These survivors?
As they sit and list to other tales (not mine!): words fail.
There is Old Bill. He was a bouncer in a bar, before his war,
Now, having given his might to the fight, he sits, silent,
Eyes trained on some lost thought, there in the cantina,
Or -- perhaps -- at Phuc Buy, where the bullets bounced him.
Walt: an old man, very old, almost ancient: he’s the last
Of his kind here: almost the Last of All. He saw Verdun,
Smelled the rotten air, redolent of victory neither won
Nor lost. It was over, then. He was young, glad. Now, he stares.
Roy was a baseball pitcher -- a lover of springtime rain,
Small town chap, he, who sits immobile now, forgetting it all,
Of a day when the Germans came, and he grappled them,
And the flash lit for an instant, and he awoke later: crippled.
Dick: the gunner, thinking about God knows what!
(Perhaps in conference with the Almighty? Stranger things happen.)
Stuck in his wheelchair, waiting for the clutter to clear,
And a voice to call his name. Deaf, he will hear that sound.
All of them are here, waiting for a weather-shift in eternity,
When tomorrow will bring all the heroes together again:
One side and the other: the good soliders. That muster
Will come. It must. They wait patiently. Time gently readies them.
One lone bugler, across some mossy hill, wets his lips.
About to sound with the last tired tears he ever will know.
12/28/98
59
Responses
« Back to index | View thread »