I cry today the Memorial.
Highground,*
An empty wind
stirs chimes and hills,
echoes the flood plain
to Southeast Asia.
I smell a country,
taste a soldier’s fear,
feel burning straw,
hear a twig,
a mother’s heart,
and a story break
on the six o’clock news.
Sculptured bronze
metal bodies
freeze time
and history
for a nation too easily
forgot the words
“never again.”
A national flag
snaps to attention,
salutes a lonely wind,
an unforgotten war,
a hypnotized people,
an uneasy belief
that a Persian Gulf,
Afghanistan, Gaza
or fresh new war
can heal another.
It stings like yesterday
fifty years later.
A generation of peace
still missing in action,
the human race
still prisoners of war.
Flowers die,
war memories fade
for those who don’t touch it
but the green patch of cloth
placed on the ground
in the center of a Memorial Day wreath
speaks an authentic story,
tells a war.
A somebody once wore it.
(c) B. Kaufmann
*Highground is a Viet Nam Memorial and park near Neilsville in central Wisconsin
