Hardy Parkerson
06-03-2011, 07:42 PM
Her Ensign
by hardy parkerson
The poinsettia he’d brought her looked like it was dead.
“It just needs to be watered,” his mother had said.
Her son had departed, gone back to his ship.
O, how she’d enjoyed his brief Christmas trip!
To lift up her spirits she’d bought her some tulips;
They sat and they bloomed on her floor;
She said that she wanted to plant some petunias
And gladiolus when the winter was o’er.
Her son was in Norfolk aboard a destroyer,
Preparing for a long voyage at sea;
And when he would call her, his call would o’er joy her,
Making her as happy as could be.
She rocked and watched t.v. and let the time pass
And prepared her lesson for her next day’s class;
She worked hard in the day, but her evenings were hers;
And that’s how she spent those long winter hours.
The Lucky Bag she kept on a shelf in her den,
Full of photos of all the Midshipmen.
She’d look at the pictures of her son inside,
And she beamed with Annapolis pride.
She sat and she rocked and she thought of her son
Who soon would be leaving to fire missiles and guns
Aboard the USS Kidd, Number 993,
That soon would be sailing out to the sea.
“You can sail the world over, Groton to Dover,
Norfolk to Pearl Harbor,” she’d say.
“You can look for a better ensign than my son,
But there’s none finer in the Navy today!”
by hardy parkerson
The poinsettia he’d brought her looked like it was dead.
“It just needs to be watered,” his mother had said.
Her son had departed, gone back to his ship.
O, how she’d enjoyed his brief Christmas trip!
To lift up her spirits she’d bought her some tulips;
They sat and they bloomed on her floor;
She said that she wanted to plant some petunias
And gladiolus when the winter was o’er.
Her son was in Norfolk aboard a destroyer,
Preparing for a long voyage at sea;
And when he would call her, his call would o’er joy her,
Making her as happy as could be.
She rocked and watched t.v. and let the time pass
And prepared her lesson for her next day’s class;
She worked hard in the day, but her evenings were hers;
And that’s how she spent those long winter hours.
The Lucky Bag she kept on a shelf in her den,
Full of photos of all the Midshipmen.
She’d look at the pictures of her son inside,
And she beamed with Annapolis pride.
She sat and she rocked and she thought of her son
Who soon would be leaving to fire missiles and guns
Aboard the USS Kidd, Number 993,
That soon would be sailing out to the sea.
“You can sail the world over, Groton to Dover,
Norfolk to Pearl Harbor,” she’d say.
“You can look for a better ensign than my son,
But there’s none finer in the Navy today!”