To His Civil War Comrades

Andrew Koon's tribute to his comrades in arms
Stands watch in the Vermont, Illinois cemetery.
The bronze sentinel leans on his rifle silently.
The bivouac of the dead that he towers over
Isn't likely to be roused til Judgment Day.
The white Grand Army of the Republic markers
With their curt Joe Friday "just the facts, ma'am"
Inscriptions are mustered in obedient ranks
At their positions in block, row and lot.

"The war years were the best years of my life,'
Andrew Koons would sigh, longing for his lost youth.
His practical farm neighbors in rural Illinois
Measured success by harvest and crop yields,
Relegating the War to Independence Day.
They laughed at old Koon's yearly ritual.
He'd fetch his uniform down from the attic,
Struggle to squeeze his bulk into the faded blue,
Maybe pop a button or two, polish up his boots,
Then go to march with the vets in the big parade.

The sword has been sheathed, and the tempered steel
That had once made Georgia howl has lost its edge.
Garrulous ancients now talked of the War of the Rebellion
With affection, as if, on the brink of entering Valhalla
They've reshaped what had been a youthful commitment
To serve their country into a lifeline tied taut
To an outcrop of youth and camaraderie.
The testosterone-driven adrenalin of confrontation
That they'd felt in combat still surged in their memories;
Easing their inevitable rappel into the abyss of death.

The old vets harbor an affection for war.
It's the fat old Rebel General Joe Wheeler
Waddling up a Cuban hill with the U.S. Army now,
Wheezing "Come on boys, let's get them damn Yankees!"
It's the bitter, asthmatic old gringo, Ambrose Bierce
Heading south fifty years after he fought at Chickamauga
To seek his youth again by fighting with Pancho Villa.
It's Johnny Clem, the drummer boy of Shiloh.
Now seventy, begging President Wilson
To let him serve in the ranks, a decorated hero
Who longed to fight again, this time in World War One.

War is the rejuvenation of old soldiers.
Who cluster round the rumbling medicine wagon
To purchase Doctor Mar's Feelgood Tonic.
They pass the patent remedy concoction among each other,
Believing that they've rediscovered their youth by bellowing
Like young bulls, cavorting warlike and howling for blood.
The audience works itself into a frenzy to buy,
Waving the lives of their and their neighbors' children
Like dollar bills as they vie to purchase the patriotic lie.

Andrew Koons tried to sell us the lie as well.
He came back from the war alive, unmaimed;
And on the victorious side of a struggle
That had cost his Nation a half million men.
The serene pose of a sentinel at ease one sees
In the serenity of an cemetery, can't be found
In the smoke, cries and chaos of a battlefield.
Walk over to the statue.  Examine it closely,
Then give it a rap.  It will resound,
Depressingly hollow.
As empty as the rhetoric that urges men to war.

Weathering

The scent of antiseptic sterility,
The hard steel exam table, morgue cold
To the touch, left me feeling none too bold.
It tends to shrivel one's vitality,
This search for rogue cells that can kill a man.
The refrain, "my body, it's been a good friend,
But I won't need it, when I reach the end,"
From Cat Steven's Tea for the Tillerman
Drifts through my mind; the scan is reality,
A jolt, a reminder of one's mortality.

Like a stray dog the years dog our footsteps,
Impervious to our kicks and curses.
Youth cocksure becomes age that rehearses
Humble prayers and turns to sacred texts
To prepare for an audience with death.
The inexorable onslaught of time
Testifies as mortality's witness
As endurance ebbs to shortness of breath.
As if being wracked for some crime unknown
Strong limbs with arthritic stiffness groan

Volcanic passion thrust forth an island
Of sea-defying smugness, basalt proud.
Time-weathered now, a reef on which gulls crowd.
Presaging a water-shrouded shoal of sand.
If we could just choose to halt time's ravage
Of our island at some youthful time of desire,
Our proud landmark outcrop that waves savage
Could rebuff them to harmless spray and aspire
to an eternity.  But perish we must.
Time's relentless waves beat us into dust
Just as islands to sand, and iron to rust.

Don't Lay Away Your Todays for Tomorrow

Don't lay away your todays for tomorrow.
See Paris when you're young.  Fall in love there.
Rent a gondola on the Grand Canal,
Climb above the clouds to Machu Picchu,
Take time off to find yourself if you need to.
Wander a quiet wood or walk the shore
Of a sun-catching lake on a May day,
Or just sit in a park and feed the squirrels.

The "boss," the punch clock, the unfulfilling tasks
All become shackles that render us "wage slaves."
Working towards those ends may be virtuous
To some, usually the employers who peddle
That line, but most of us who pursue our dreams
Discover that the prize that we've desired
Has eluded our grasp or has been wrested from us,
Rendering our lives  exercises in futility.

When you visit a nursing home, "listen."
Mournful sobs plunge past despair's deepest depth
Into realms of more pitiless sorrow.
Wretched warehoused souls who wait upon death
Can never forget, and most deeply regret, .
Having laid away their yesterdays for today.

The Couple on the Park Bench

The elderly couple sitting on the park bench
Lean into each other as they quietly whisper,
So as not to disturb the air, scare the chipmunks
or drive away the pigeons that they love to feed,
They visit softly as they comment on the foliage.
His eyesight failing, he sees it as Monet would
Paint it, as blurred yet vibrant impressions of color.
She sees more clearly, brilliant orange, reds and yellows,
Leaves that seem to burst into flame as the light
Shatters its brightness upon them and seems to ignite
Blazes that loom over the fading frost-touched grass.

Their was a time when their passion burned that strong,
A time when her slightest touch, or even just her
Presence could arouse an excitement and desire in him
That frightened him at first by its intensity.
His need was so great; her power over him so complete.

Now he puts his arm around her, and she'll brush his cheek
Just slightly with her fingertips, or reach to hold his hand.
Their fingers intertwine as they watch the first fall
Flutter of leaves let go and float to the ground,
Soon to become the brittleness that precedes fall decay.
They feel the brittleness of age in their own bones as well,
But they derive comfort and reassurance from each other.
They wrap themselves in the downy comforter
Of companionship and shared memories, and nestle
Closer to each other as winter approaches.

Mr. Death

You've been a hard man to get to know, Mr. Death.
As a boy you came to me in the guise of a teacher
Attempting to console me in my sob-wracked grief;
Or you'd appear in the holy robes of a preacher
Laboring ineffectively to explain the inexplicable,
The dark,unfathomable descent into oblivion,
In terminology incomprehensible to a child.

As a teen you were my laconic black-leather buddy
Scorning consequences with a James Dean sneer,
Then a dismissive "don't sweat any of that shit, guy;
You're immortal."  From suicide machines to fast cars,
From drunken debauches to drug-induced euphoria
You partied with us; raising a glass to our departed friends
While smugly savoring their testosterone-driven deaths.

After I settled down, married and began to act less selfish,
I began to fear you'd summon me, leaving my family bereft.
You donned an insurance agent's budget rack attire,
Smarmy smile and over the top concern to pressure premiums
To guarantee my family's safety.  Then you became a pedophile
Lurking in the park, a drunk driver careening down the street;
Random evil out there plotting to take my child from me.

Now you've become Time; the cruel devourer of my dreams.
I see lines you've carved upon my face as I gaze into the mirror,
I feel you in my aching joints that used to be so supple;
I hear you in the shrieking whine of a siren in the distance
As an ambulance speeds frantically toward some destination
That I pray is not the home of someone that I love.  If so,
I touch your white parchment skin in a funeral casket.

Mr. Death, I've wondered at you, driven with you,
Dealt with you, feared you, and foolishly tried to outrun you.
I am not ready to let you take me by the hand yet.
I know that there will come a day when you will come for me,
Perhaps in the guise of some dear departed loved one
Whose familiar visage will reassure me as you gently lead me
Into your inescapable realm of eternal repose.

When sickness, loneliness or despair drive me into your arms,
I'll relish the moment when I part the curtain of superstition,
Lift the veil from your head and at last finally view your face;
Something I could never have hoped to see during my life,
But something that I've always both feared and longed to do.
This tumult of experience and emotion that we call "Life"
Is wearing me down, Mr. Death.  Be patient.  I'll be along anon.

Fading into the Light

Having witnessed the pre-dawn miracle
Of my son's birth, I left the hospital
Raptly clutching the Polaroid image
Of him blanketed in blue swaddling,
His cheeks scratched by tiny fingernails
Clumsily flailing against the brightness,
The light that engulfed him after the slap
And the snip of his umbilical cord.

My Mother-in-Law's kitchen light was on.
My knock intruded upon her Sunday rite
Of communion with coffee and newsprint.
Gazing tenderly at my new son's picture,
She embraced her role shift from a mother
To grandmother, her love eminating
Already toward that image of a child
Who would come to mean so much to her.

The child whose name has now fled her memory.
A strong woman can accept growing old,
Embracing each year like a new grandchild,
Something to be lovingly fussed over.
Louise had never been that strong.  Childlike
In her vanity, she'd been an ornament
On the arm of both husbands she'd outlived.
She was happiest when dressed in fine gowns.

Never so devastated as on that day
When after having caused an accident,
She heard an officer refer to her
Via radio, with "Joe Friday" terseness
As "a confused elderly woman."
"Do I really look that old?" she asked us
Tearfully, as if our denials could help
Turn back the hands of time's ruthless advance.

Now Alzheimers is hastening her decline.
Her memories have lost their focus.
Images flee beyond recollection
Like photgraphs that have been left too long
Upon a desk for the sun's rays to caress,
Sapping them of their detail and color.
Clarity fades into a shroud of indistinct white
That wraps her thoughts in a befuddled haze.

Osteoporosis bends her body forward
Into a question mark that puctuates her
Confusion.  She hears words she no longer
Comprehends, has thoughts she's no longer able
To express.  As death approaches she'll curl up
Into a fetal-position, womb-secure.
When the brightness that spooks a newborn beckons,
She'll head toward the Light and be absorbed in it.