TheBanyanTree: Veteran's Day 2003

[R J Fernalld]

unsung nightingale

the numbers staggered the heart
the river of blood
the mountain of limbs and lives
shattered and broken...numbs the mind

the cause, the fight, the shrapnel
as night closed in we prayed
scalpel, plasma, 3.0 silk
"dear john" sweethearts screaming "mama!"

we nursed, we loved, we mothered
we bound wounds of heart and tissue
we ached for home and we wearied
known and unknown and unnumberd

still the needles and napalm
invade the last vestiges of prayer
for the unnamed dead remembered
and the river of blood undammed

the girl that bled with the wounded
returned...an unsung nightingale
swimming still against a red tide
that gurgles frantically each night in dreams

copyright R J Fernalld 2003