Remember Forever

On this Veterans' Day, we should pause to remember the sacrifice our men and women have made and continue to make to defend their country, to go where we ask them, and to do what we ask of them. We should thank any veteran we meet. Unless we have been there ourselves, we can only imagine what they have faced so that we at home do not have to.

In tribute and with humility, I offer the following impression:

      Marine

He has every warrior’s eyes,
slits in sooty face,
unfocused pupils that
gaze for long distances.

He has blood and smoke
for the warrior’s paint
battled in streaks across
his ancient face.

In a year, when he is home,
Kentucky backfires will
send him into action again,
ready to combat shadows,

stirring dreams etched in
engrams, permanent
patterns of flash and sound,
death and dirt, pain

and that giddy elation
of dealing in mortality.
He felt pain. He dealt pain.
In Fallujah he fought until

it fell in smoking ruin.
He knew the way the roadside
erupted in fire and cloud
like Yahweh’s smoking pillar

but without its message.
He is ancient. He is eighteen.
He is a lit cigarette dangling
smoke from a hundred

burning rubble piles
into a dreadful blue
Iraqi heaven.
He has every warrior’s

dream---to be as
dead as necessary for
one more day closer to
what once was home.