Member Poem

Holding idyllic Kodak photos of my middle class
Long Island family,
my mother's golden beehive elegantly arranged
on her head.
In the mournful 1960's,
so many black and white newspaper photographs
and newsreels of the Vietnam War.

Humid jungles, rice paddies,
sweating youthful U.S. soldiers,
Charlie an elusive enemy of the shadows
in nightmares.
Many American troops only teenagers,
their souls bled with exhaustion.

My mother and I embraced weeping
in the loss of the ones who returned
fallen,
for MIA and POW,
and for others broken in body
and spirit.
How can we celebrate our
birthdays when they lost their's.

Night's lorn dispersed in a
black prism of grief's remembrance.
Father of Light,
they became Your's,
and I will not forget -
war is a storming wanton wretch
of a bastard.