Digging Into Veterans Day, Poetry Included

Yesterday I spent an important hour with a "poet of war," encouraging more writing, trying to hold some doors open. I hadn't thought of this person with such a category until I got there and began to listen (in person), and then it seemed so clear that I was surprised I hadn't found the term before.

Of course there are many who've written from their war experiences. The one that brought me reality (instead of lines of warnings and mourning) was Brian Turner. Here's the cover of his first collection. He's released three new books this year, all very different from where he'd started, with a richness of music to them. I hope you'll drop in and visit his website.

 

A bit of one of his poems: "A murder of crows looks on in silence / from the eucalyptus trees above / as we stand over the bodies."  Or from another, where a woman at a distance is hanging laundry: "She is dressing the dead, clothing them / as they wait in silence, the pigeons circling / as fumestacks billow a noxious black smoke. / She is welcoming them back to the dry earth, / giving them dresses in tangerine and teal, / woven cotton shirts died blue."

And thinking of those two together -- one local, not-yet-very-published poet, and the nationally and even globally recognized author -- led me to writing my own poem for the moment. There is indeed very gray and cold weather in northeastern Vermont today, with winter (its trials and delights) marching toward us, unstoppable, unbearable at times unless you hold onto love.

Thoughts on Another Veterans Day

 

This is the same wind-tossed gray sky that held in place

at childhood Easter mornings—resurrection arrives small,

one crocus at a time, one purple pod of potential

determined to unfold in any scraps of sun.

 

Now I hesitate on the other side of the year

aware that every small snowfall, every frigid silent night

warns of what’s ahead: Those in shabby housing press

plastic over the windows and grieve the cost of oil.

 

In town, the courthouse flag flaps wildly. Solemn words,

uniforms, a prayer. At the entrance to the grocery store

an old friend sits at a modest table, resting his knees

while reaching out with red paper poppies. Take one.

 

Veterans I have known: An angry man whose letters to

the editor poked like porcupine quills from his raw scraped

skin. A doctor who scrubs her hands too much. Young relative,

prospering, riding between wild lands and profit.

 

My father, who taught us Navy knots. Mom’s father,

arranging his kitchen  for baking bread, typing out

the detailed recipes, mailing them across the ocean.

“Z,” moving up the ranks, her friends lifting a glass.

 

The closer they are, the more personal their survival.

But understanding? For that, I lean on words, which means

that man in the middle distance (who hid his poetry notebook

when leading into battle), pulling me beyond

 

the cost of winter. His reality: first a pause to smile

at children in a desert land; to admire a woman at a well;

to press the love he’d hand-nourished, into another man’s

wounds; strike with a fist his own heart, for the sake of

 

honesty. Which is not at all like a textbook, after all.

Because it bleeds, forms a scar, resists hard rain.

 

-- BK