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Recorded Reading (3:53):

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/7av0neae8tjxpjjfv1ex4/On-Memorial-Day-In-a-Far-Field.mp3?rlkey=2fw541afdipv1l6fbnddacg18&st=lqm0e5nj&dl=0

*****

This poet penned patriotic poetry from a young age throughout most of her adulthood, and is looking very much forward to returning to that practice as soon as she may.

… And while she deplores the waste and suffering of war, she is not so naive as to claim its utter unnecessity among us yet, as unevolved as we are stubbornly proving still to be as a species.

Only an individual who has never personally had a disagreement with a neighbor, friend, associate or loved one is in a position to claim that nations never also come to such a need.

The poet doesn’t know a single soul who can make that claim.

… Do you?

This poet feels that, in any nation presently existing, the common citizen is simply not privy to enough information to be able to distinguish, accurately, actual necessity from the blundering of those isolated by entitlement from the worst results of their own actions.

Without any doubt at all ~ both have started wars.

So, while she admires the courage of demonstrators in keeping our right to protest alive, the poet herself is not a protester ~ and this is not a war protest poem.

This poem, instead, is a tribute to the beauty, grace and grief accompanying one single sacrifice out of so very many so similar to it, by only ~ as lyric verse has always been constrained to do ~ describing it to others in as affecting a way as any mere poet may.

*****

On Memorial Day, In a Far Field

Still so young
College aged
He glanced around him at
The mud
Blood
And death

Heard screaming shells
Screaming brothers
Ground becoming fountains
Skies falling

And he thought

About us

Having a barbeque today

Listening to the
Silly stories of our
Loved ones yet again, and

He wished he could be here

And he hoped that something
Anything about this
Absolute moment of hell
Which surrounded him
Inescapably now would

Help

To guarantee
For us
Many more such moments
As we were
And he was wishing he were
Living through right then

As he sank helplessly
Past his ears
In the cold
Sucking
Unforgiving
Unforgivable

Mud

*****

This poet/editor is physically disabled, and lives at a fraction of her nation’s poverty level.

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