Soldiers Once
I finished my quick-turn-around job earlier this afternoon and had a couple hours extra. I could have, and maybe should have, worked on my wip, but my thoughts were on Veterans Day. So I spent the time writing a series of occasional poems.
Soldiers Once
--Veterans Day 2008
1. Armistice Day
In memory of James M. Quimby, Sr.
Grampa, what did you see
in the Royal Engineers,
running the troops
and supplies to the front?
And did you carry the wounded, the gassed
on the clickety-clack journey back?
I often wondered, hearing a slight wheeze
in your breath, if you didn't catch some whiff
of gas drifting across mined fields,
but I'll never know, for you never spoke
of these things, only of Paris
at the eleventh minute of the eleventh hour,
relief lighting your eyes
at the recollection of the mam'selle
snatching your hat and running away,
and you wandered in the memory
until I asked what happened,
and a shy grin spread.
"I got my hat back,"
is all you said before Gram
dragged us back to the present
with "No need to dwell in the past."
2. Victory in Europe
In memory of Hank Golovin
Once you reached the age
when work was done, family grown,
you began to speak
of fighting across France
from the beaches to the border
and into an aborted empire,
until you arrived at Woebbelin,
where, you said, no gas was used,
but people were abandoned
to death
and in their decaying
left an odor you recalled
decades later, visiting Dachau,
where the gas did flow,
into chambers, not across fields.
"It was a very emotional part of my life,"
you said, and by what you did not say
revealed what makes a man a soldier,
and what soldiering makes of a man.
3. Color Guards and Frogs
--In memory of Don Sisco
Every May he marched
in the Legion color guard
from the school to the memorial
carved from living rock
and watching from the sidewalk
I couldn't help wonder
if he had the same bandy-legged gait
when he drilled in formation,
and what his sargeant made of it.
I do not know what duty he saw,
only that he served during Korea
and found brotherhood
and a patriotism that ran deep
beside a dedication to community
that put him in charge of the frog-jumping
every Fourth of July.
4. Back home
--In memory of John Sheehan
There was a war on the evening news
when I was a girl growing up in the hills.
(Has there ever not been a war in the news?)
Black and white blurs of jungle foliage,
monks burning, a naked girl running--
these sights became nearly commonplace.
But the war came home
one Fourth of July
on a car-lined slope of field.
Couples and families trekked
across the green grass
to the glowing concession stand
for popcorn, candy, soda.
I was perched on the Beetle bumper
waiting for dark, watching the crowd,
when I saw a single man
carrying a cardboard tray.
"There's John Sheehan."
My father's voice was quiet,
as was my mother's answer,
"I didn't know he was back."
As I watched, somewhere on the field
pop!
a firecracker went off
and John Sheehan dropped
almost to his knees,
but somehow didn't spill
a drop or a kernel,
rose, and went on,
and that's when the war
came home for me.
5. New Year's
For D.H.
"You can't believe the heat over there,
you tell us, explaining why your house
feels like a sauna without the steam,
but we are too relieved to mind--
you are home,
you are safe
(at least for now)
and we won't talk about the chances
of another or a different tour,
even though we all know these thoughts
lurk below the surface
like a mine buried in France
nine decades ago
and as terrifying.
Katherine Quimby Johnson. All rights reserved.
Someday maybe this world will have peace for more than our time. Until then, thanks to the veterans, not only here at home, but among our allies. And may we never forget the thousands who died in the mud in Flanders and France in "the war to end all wars."
Soldiers Once
--Veterans Day 2008
1. Armistice Day
In memory of James M. Quimby, Sr.
Grampa, what did you see
in the Royal Engineers,
running the troops
and supplies to the front?
And did you carry the wounded, the gassed
on the clickety-clack journey back?
I often wondered, hearing a slight wheeze
in your breath, if you didn't catch some whiff
of gas drifting across mined fields,
but I'll never know, for you never spoke
of these things, only of Paris
at the eleventh minute of the eleventh hour,
relief lighting your eyes
at the recollection of the mam'selle
snatching your hat and running away,
and you wandered in the memory
until I asked what happened,
and a shy grin spread.
"I got my hat back,"
is all you said before Gram
dragged us back to the present
with "No need to dwell in the past."
2. Victory in Europe
In memory of Hank Golovin
Once you reached the age
when work was done, family grown,
you began to speak
of fighting across France
from the beaches to the border
and into an aborted empire,
until you arrived at Woebbelin,
where, you said, no gas was used,
but people were abandoned
to death
and in their decaying
left an odor you recalled
decades later, visiting Dachau,
where the gas did flow,
into chambers, not across fields.
"It was a very emotional part of my life,"
you said, and by what you did not say
revealed what makes a man a soldier,
and what soldiering makes of a man.
3. Color Guards and Frogs
--In memory of Don Sisco
Every May he marched
in the Legion color guard
from the school to the memorial
carved from living rock
and watching from the sidewalk
I couldn't help wonder
if he had the same bandy-legged gait
when he drilled in formation,
and what his sargeant made of it.
I do not know what duty he saw,
only that he served during Korea
and found brotherhood
and a patriotism that ran deep
beside a dedication to community
that put him in charge of the frog-jumping
every Fourth of July.
4. Back home
--In memory of John Sheehan
There was a war on the evening news
when I was a girl growing up in the hills.
(Has there ever not been a war in the news?)
Black and white blurs of jungle foliage,
monks burning, a naked girl running--
these sights became nearly commonplace.
But the war came home
one Fourth of July
on a car-lined slope of field.
Couples and families trekked
across the green grass
to the glowing concession stand
for popcorn, candy, soda.
I was perched on the Beetle bumper
waiting for dark, watching the crowd,
when I saw a single man
carrying a cardboard tray.
"There's John Sheehan."
My father's voice was quiet,
as was my mother's answer,
"I didn't know he was back."
As I watched, somewhere on the field
pop!
a firecracker went off
and John Sheehan dropped
almost to his knees,
but somehow didn't spill
a drop or a kernel,
rose, and went on,
and that's when the war
came home for me.
5. New Year's
For D.H.
"You can't believe the heat over there,
you tell us, explaining why your house
feels like a sauna without the steam,
but we are too relieved to mind--
you are home,
you are safe
(at least for now)
and we won't talk about the chances
of another or a different tour,
even though we all know these thoughts
lurk below the surface
like a mine buried in France
nine decades ago
and as terrifying.
Katherine Quimby Johnson. All rights reserved.
Someday maybe this world will have peace for more than our time. Until then, thanks to the veterans, not only here at home, but among our allies. And may we never forget the thousands who died in the mud in Flanders and France in "the war to end all wars."