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Sleep well, soldier
know that you are honored
your name is not forgotten
we stand humbled
bowed in awe and sorrow
before your sacrifice
sleep well, soldier
sleep well
we will remember you
-Susanna Holstein
Sacrifice
Let me be the fallen soldier -
a single, nameless face.
Let me simply fall in honor,
dying in this place.
I don’t wish my name be written
in countless hist’ry books.
I don’t want the endless praise
for how, the earth, I shook.
Let me be the nameless soldier,
one who died for all.
When evil came to take us down,
just know I heard the call.
I’ll gladly lay my life down here,
give up this mortal shape.
I’ll give up my last breath for good,
before taking my escape.
Let me be the unknown soldier,
who died for peace at last,
with no problem disappearing
into nameless past.
-Jaime McDougall
They needed volunteers to hold the enemy back.
On a quiet, American morning you stepped into
The Gap.
And stood.
You stood when the night stretched
on too long.
You stood when the sun came
up too strong.
You stood when the sand
blew like hot coals right into your eyes.
You stood like a water wall,
holding back the fire.
And millions of fathers and mothers back home, get down on their knees
and give thanks to our Lord...
all
because you stood.
-Sara Pufahl
Boys seeking manhood,
Men seeking truth,
for Noble gain,
Never realizing
Possible pain,
To save a Country,
In the name of Freedom,
Democracy.
History repeats their destiny.
Some will return,
Whole, but scarred,
By the memories of
Brave soldiers,
Brothers lost to Patriotism.
We mourn for them.
We pray for them a
Safe return
We thank them for
their Sacrifice.
-Margaret Kreischer
You are Marion and Claire
Lucille, Edward.
You are the engineer,
the doctor's wife.
Yet, you are not.
You are Michael S. Adams
a man we will never
forget.
Hero
While you were wailing
in your newborn crib
I was tuned into
the Mets and Red Sox,
watching with my mom,
and we thought the ball
moving through Buckner's
legs was the greatest
and worst thing that could
happen between us,
that a sport that could
split a mom and son
must have no value
or mean everything.
When you were seven
I left for college,
me and my mother
on the sidewalk turned
around a corner,
her quivering lips,
my sister honking
the horn. In what world
should a parent be
separated from
their child by such
distance? Not like this.
We cried for how long
we would have to drive
to see each other.
In this incursion
I want to debate
policy, theory,
the potential use
of military
force as a method
for encouraging
the spread of freely
renewable, made
by the people for
the people and of
the people regimes,
a debate about
the sword and the word,
and with what we lead.
Unfortunately,
people are dying,
and being slaughtered,
and placed in harms way,
and more turned into
killers who suffer
a bit each moment
they are under siege,
away from their homes
and kept from mothers
who love them, fathers
who wish their children
could be farmers, work
in a factory
or a skyscraper.
I load up my car,
a full tank of gas
and head out to work,
forgetting to call
home, tell my mother,
who I know worries,
how much I miss her,
and miss the ballgames
we use to sit down
together to watch,
the smell of popcorn
with salt and butter,
the crack of the bat
and thump of a ball
felled into a mitt.
So, as much as talk
intrigues me, it's not
my own enjoyment
or mental challenge
I here seek. Instead
I'll call you hero
and your Mom, goddess,
who gave birth and raised
such a sweet child
who would dedicate
their fate to winning
a fair victory
against an unfair
enemy. Hero,
that relevant word.
thom ingram
i saw you
darkness still
you broke the veil
of dark -
i saw you -
every inch of you -
all of everything
of you -
it was perfect -
perfect -
i was full with
your light -
the light shining
through you
when i went
& where too
you can
see me now -
i
wait
blind to
transgression -
i wait
in your
for your
perfection -
by luc simonic
A name is called,
a single bell tolled,
reminding us of one
young, unproven life
laid down for the freedoms
we have come to view as an entitlement.
What of that one life's entitlement‹
to a long life, filled with love,
to children and homestead,
to meaningful work and deep faith,
to reach an age that encourages reflection on a life well-lived.
Can we honor this young soldier enough?
Can we ever make sense of this loss?
Amanda J. Smith
THE UNKNOWN SERVICE
This is the last shirt I will ever fold.
Here is my armless sleeve,
my face huddled up next to you,
my memory wound on the forever
replay of a grieving heart.
Here is a medal to honor
my blank chest, my shot weapon.
Here is the Humvee humming
into endless summer.
Here are my tears
folded into my body.
Here is your joy
pressed into an unplucked flower.
Here is the single rain drop
disguised as an unused sorrow.
Here is the many-tongued
denial of a mission, the lost
taste of a mother's cookie,
a father's last tool left vacant
in the vacant lot of an old garage,
heart-stopped, deadly
only to the dead
dis-re-membering.
Stop them in an alley.
Give away the clothes.
The stray cats flee
like shrapnel on a weak
horizon. All the blinds
gone bad, the future
sabotaged by a sutured smile.
Here is the last letter
I will ever write you
buried in the armor
of irony, the lit fuse
of democracy, burning
(o' burning!) for you.
Lorna Dee Cervantes
If I Could
If I could wrap
a flag around my shoulders
like the wings
of an angel
I'd fly to you
right now.
If I could flip
love letters like
pennies
up to heaven
I'd write to you
a hundred times a day.
If I could ring all the church
bells at once, in morse code
I'd beg god each night
at 6 o'clock
to send you
back to me.
-Michelle M. Buchanan
The call
One day I glanced
and I perceived that I saw
a man on a bench that wept
while I swept
Inquired of him
I approached and I asked
What was so sad
what was so bad?
"My son has died
in a land far away
In the army was he
and my heart always be.
I weep not for
his passing you see
but I reflect on his life
of his joy and his strife
a troubled lad
was he in his youth
but joy did he find
assisting, to be kind
I'm weeping you see
from a post have I here
telling his deed that was so brave
written by the family he did save."
I went my rounds
sweeping the ground in silence
thought did I no ill can befall
when our children heed and answer the call.
jd bowling
a death a day
"In the first 27 days of June, 27 soldiers and
marines were killed [in Anbar Province] . . .
New York Times, June 29, 2006
unlit helicopter lifts another
by night
hard to find someone to unzip
black bag
see peace pooled on last
expression
letter to broken home maybe
ex-wife
while real family left saluting in
spin of sand
j.b. rowell
My friend
when you left,
you were a child -
starlight in those eyes,
gateway to heaven
in that smile.
we never met,
but perhaps one day
you'll meet those
of us who waited
your return.
and yours, and yours -
all Heroes.
then we'll have
a ticker-tape
parade to thank you,
to welcome all you
Men and Women
home.
Penny August
The summer sky at night
is endless,
black and full of stars.
I sit on the deck
alone, dreaming new
constellations.
Finger to the darkness
connecting the dots
over and over
until I see your face-
and I always do
see your face.
-Michelle M. Buchanan
The Sky Tonight
Greyish-purple,
bloated arms streak
wild and warm
waiting to exhale.
The oaks and maples
line up, turned leaves
to their soft under
sides.
Like a thousand frog
bellies breathing in
the wind.
It will rain
all night.
Tomorrow the ground
will diamond in a wet,
slick clean.
The sky will open
to you again,
tomorrow.
Michelle M. Buchanan June 28, 2006
