(I wasn't in the war directly,
but imagined it from afar as my friends told me about it,
long before I was drafted to serve in Hawaii—
my experiences there to follow in this blog someday.)


RECOLLECTIONS OF WAR


A fading eagle flew frozen in fear
past deserted flowers in desperate land,
And a rising earth halted for a hasty madness
as time awaited a dead sun.

Remember now the beginning, one fine day,
when we came out of nowhere!
In no cradle birth, one thunderous heartbeat
separated animal from plant,

And, we stood up straight one day,
our minds still a drunk’s uneven crawling;
Later, in the breath of life, we knew that
a churchyard must yawn now and then.

But now we are helpless—
we must fight to our worthless deaths, dying,
Screaming forgiveness, but, die as we must
when peace is a barren land.
Daily now, one grips less firmly his last integrity,
the essential life slips.

Where are the grown men, stuffed and rigid?
Where are they? Where?
They are so silent and meaningless to us now.
They are no longer with us.

And throughout the aftermath
we could almost grasp it in our dreams,
And hope that we might live to die
far from the River of Perfumes.
Meanwhile, we are dying to live everyday
as we surrender our souls.
Around us we see the bodies—
they lie upon us; they died among us.

Rising to our last stand we look:
Where are the grown men, the old men?
We thought that we were loved then,
but we’ve been betrayed, sold, lost ...

Shall I try for fading woods,
scrambling over the trails, searching for my life?
I’ll flee and fly over the leaves of yesterday—
they crumble before my eyes.

And there I’ll come out of it all
with firm desire to laugh, love, and live—
There in a hilly grove
near swelling stream by daisies, grass, and tree.

Once more I escape the horrid death
as the grown men approach;
I try to see my way past
the swiftly moving figures of the human race.

Even now, those men with guns so loud
are silently dying in the strife.
Living in a time nigh for sighing,
we rise for dying.
Can this be life?

Of course, all this it was our duty to bear;
we bled our blood; we served.
And during the lull of the monsoon rains,
I begin to drink, to honor my life—
To hope, as dawn comes,
much like a Chinese painting—
too real to be true.

I wake the artillery-man,
and cross the Song Ba to disarm the claymores.
Now it is lovely April and we’re dying
on this fine day in the time of our life.

Slightly sighing for crying charlie,
my bayonet blazes in scarlet, in death,
And yet another hasty man
gropes for the earth and escapes this horrid life.

There, on a cloud of thought,
we fly by their ways with a life for ourselves.
And, then, they wither with the wind,
those thoughts that once echoed,
Where they once were teeming, fighting...
The forums now emptied.

There is only room to say
“Let us kill him,” as wrath’s way becomes us,
And there in the cells of a brain
where currents of feeling once surged,
The mind’s will falters, and waivers
between the Emotion and the Intellect.

A shrill siren chilled with ill will,
then, when he was yet young and fine—
Houses were crumbling, streets were heaving,
people were weeping, dying;
And others wished to live,
from brothers to mothers—all lived but the father;
Can you see the tears in the young one’s eyes
as the deathman cometh?

The love and the feeling were nowhere,
the men motionless and rigid,
And, too, the air was not worth breathing,
but, was filled and smothering,
Leaving the men breathless, helpless,
and, of course, so lifeless.
The blight was so deathtaking;
the sight of goodness never so breathtaking.

Once in awhile I’ll wince in a smile for truth,
cringe at the fringe of love;
It is my dream,
a star shining somewhere in the universe—
I can see it there in all of its dimness,
through the plight of my brightness.

It is there forever and still;
it is there while the thinkers thought for ages,
As dreamers dreamt time after time,
when hoped even the hopeless,
As slept the sleepers into oblivion,
while philosophers pondered infinitum,
As wept the weepers for a long time,
when pitied even the pitiful . . .

All that I saw on earth was lost.
There hated the loveless in the wasteland.
There the dying lived for a lifetime
as all the wise men greyed and died.
So now I’ll let my “enemies” grow old
as my wine yet flows sweet and pure.

Here comes the slush of doom seeping over us,
belching with contagion.
The pleas of the corrupt fly out;
they cry out; their lives are snuffed out!
The Good Friday mourners yet weep for man,
for everyone, for eternity.

At life’s end
the silent men array themselves, finally—
there for the asking
In the stead of the dead,
prisoners of themselves.

Cautious Pilate ponders,
as there my star shines in the springtime of life.
The star is a beacon in the night of terror,
fading in the search for the valiant.

How can I live, how can I die?
Look around—there are other worlds!
See, the grass is high and green
on the far side of never.
Find for me the sun shining, the streams flowing,
the forests, the fertile meadows.

The soldiers moved slowly now
to make their lives last,
a searching band;
And fighting has flared on the border;
now hurry death or hurry darkness.

Deciding at last, I made an easy day of it,
staring life in the face, indulging
In a vast wonderland and wilderness
of childish fancy and fantasy,

And I laughed a lot louder then,
feeling no need to weep in pity for them,
Or to cry for the scoundrels
who would grasp at life from graves in war.

It was then that I saw the life,
the awe, the infinite,
the good, and my end.
To see where my youth and laughter could go,
I lived and died to be free;
My mind took no mind;
yes it was good to be loved then,
to be young again.