How do we honor those who gave their lives,
Or had it wrenched from them? Or those who left
Their friends behind on fields of woe? Or those,
Who when they went to war were whole, were men,
Were brothers, fathers, lovers, heroes all,
And yet when they returned were empty husks,
Their bodies torn by implements of death,
Their minds inflamed by memories of deeds
That could not be undone, of sights that would
Not be forgot – nor be forgiven by
Those who from the comfort of their homes
Passed judgment through the glowing screens,
That without mercy brought the grueling sights
Of war to rudely interrupt the evening meal,
And so reminded them their tranquil lives
Were mortgaged with the blood of those
Who, willingly or not, spilled it on foreign shores?
The blast of trumpets fades, and the retort
Of guns, or one, or one and twenty sounds,
But silence only fills the skies of May
Thereafter, and white stones, in perfect rows
(like soldiers standing at attention still)
Are left behind, without the power to stay
The sun’s unstoppable decline upon our
Memories (as forlorn hopes who stormed the breach
And fell: they forged the path to victory,
Yet those who marched in ranks far to the rear,
Had long forgot their sacrifice, while they
Now quarreled ‘mongst themselves for spoils of war).
No medals bright, no folded flag, indeed,
Can make these dead take their place among men.
Only our minds, entrapped in fickle flesh,
That shivering gray matter, can do this.
Therefore remember, against all that tempts
You to complacently forget and turn
A blind eye to the deeds of those who with
Their lives did pave the road you freely tread:
Remember Gettysburg, remember Pickett’s Charge,
And Little Round Top, held with steel alone;
The sailors who died with the mighty Maine,
And Roosevelt, so bold at San Juan Hill.
So many men withered like weeds in the Argonne,
Or stained with crimson the cold waters of the Marne;
They faced that foe again in Normandy;
And at Bastogne they fought unto the knife.
Who dares forget their valor at Pusan;
And their dramatic flight from Chosin to the sea?
Who prayed, when trapped at Khe-San, they prevail;
That they revenge the slaughter at Hue?
Their honor, wrongly stained, would be repaired
At Ras al-Khafji and Medina Ridge.
If these strange names I conjured in my lines
Do strike you as some kabbalistic writ
Upon the sorcerer’s dread circle, then,
Go learn the tales that the unquiet Earth,
Alas, cannot keep hidden in her grief.
But you who know, and understand – perhaps
Remember: There are those who do commit
Your lives unto the conscience of this land,
And ply their craft that they who follow aft
Or soon, or late, do not forget but know:
You went abroad and fought in conflicts far,
So those who stayed behind could live in peace.
