Good day, team.
Today is Memorial Day. For this week’s challenge, I am offering a few poems about war that touch me deeply. It is but one way to honor those who serve in the armed forces. Your challenge this week is to find your own way to honor those who served their countrymen. Let us not forget those who have perished, those who’s lives have been marred by war, and those who continue to serve us.
As Toilsome I Wander’d Virginia’s Woods
As toilsome I wander’d Virginia’s woods,
To the music of rustling leaves kick’d by my feet, (for ’twas autumn,)
I mark’d at the foot of a tree the grave of a soldier;
Mortally wounded he and buried on the retreat, (easily all could understand,)
The halt of a mid-day hour, when up! No time to lose-yet this sign left,
On a tablet scrawl’d and nail’d on the tree by the grave,
Bold, cautious, true, and my loving comrade.
Long, long I muse, then on my way go wandering,
Many a changeful season to follow, and many a scene of life,
Yet at times through changeful season and scene, abrupt, alone, or in the crowded street,
Comes before me the unknown soldier’s grave, come the inscription rude in Virginia’s woods,
Bold, cautious, true, and my loving comrade.
~ Walt Whitman
Ten Minutes
It was ten minutes before the war
The quietest thing you ever saw
Ten minutes before the war
And everything was looking good
It was ten minutes during the war
The sickest thing you ever saw
Ten minutes during the war
And everything was dying fast
break
It was ten minutes after the war
The emptiest thing you ever saw
Ten minutes after the war
And there was nothing left
No more war
Is that what it takes for
No more war
No more war
Is that what it takes for
No more war
It was ten minutes.
~ Colin Coplin
Upon the Arid Lakes
Someplace
A field of flowers
Rousing under remnants of the dawn:
Out there! from death, I rose
Above the silent many –
A distant will-o’-the-wisp
Reflecting under airs of minor ninths –
How rich the ambience they threw!
What theme of prosody
Had rendered me? –
Tho’ silent were its words:
A broken soul in pulsing pain –
Thou mustn’t guess what goes behind
The sick and ghostly screen of war!
In sallow-grey and other ashen hues,
Disrobed of warming flesh
That reassures the bones,
A twisted pose
Portrayed my physicality –
Not unlike the carcass of a prey;
But as a cloud of thought, I mused,
Exacerbating woes
Collected in a life dispatched
In freely flowing blood,
Conferring crimson shades
Upon the arid lakes aflood
With glorious tides of nascent buds
Begetting innocence.
And as we glowed in ruddy shades,
I asked: ‘What future lies ahead?
What terror trades? ’
~ Mark R. Slaughter
Have a good week!
Kathleen
Kathleen Doyle-White
Pathfinders Coaching
(503) 296-9249 office