Moving slowly

With age and reverence

Eyes that once had sight

Rely on the eyes of the heart

Fingertips glide over each name

Searching for one in particular

On the long wall of names

 

Years have passed

Blonde hair now a snowy white

Imitating her former nurse uniform

Her heart quickens-she reached the end

None that her soul recognizes

A hand slips into hers, she knows

Her soldier’s come home

 

Another veteran reads the names

A flood of emotions and recollections

Return to haunt him, like a necropolis weeping willow

The battle shots ring through his mind

The sweltering sulfur smoky in his eyes

The stench of the wounded sickening his soul

He pressed on, down the long wall of names

 

Old now, and grey, longing fills his mind, grief envelopes his soul

He misses his brother, robbed of his young life under hostile Vietnamese fire, who

Will never again march beside him, except in the Eternal City

Delivering a 21-gun salute as a piercing farewell to a filial friendship

A lifeless hero, now to be a folded flag on a mantelpiece tribute

Blood poured for freedom, life give to the very last breath

A soldier’s gone home