108 fountains
09-16-2014, 08:04 PM
As poetry, this is full of flaws, but I post it here just as a small piece of history since the story it tells is true.
Two Old Soldiers
Wilfred was a farmhand.
He never cared much for school.
He ran after the horse-drawn tractor,
And after the sixth grade,
His father let him jump on.
Alfred was the son of Polish immigrants
Who came through America’s front door.
Yet in the land of the free and the home of the brave,
Despite their sweat and toil, they remained quite poor.
Wilfred and Alfred were boys when they signed up for the war.
Eighteen years old amid the noise of 1944.
Nothing can adequately describe that war.
The horror.
The insanity.
The loss.
Those who survived sometimes envied those who died.
In one way or another, they carried it with them all their lives.
The rubble of Europe, the despair of Asia;
Then the surrender and the occupation.
As the world smoldered, America emerged from the ashes
Victorious and benevolent with looming prosperity.
True, Mao was on the march and Stalin was insatiable,
But the war was over, and a new era begun.
By 1946, the soldiers began their return,
Some with a swagger, some with a wound.
At homecomings, families rejoiced.
Romance and marriage resulted in a baby-boom.
Wilfred’s family lost the farm.
When he returned, he took a job
Smearing plaster on the walls of new homes.
There were many new homes then,
Enough to start a family,
But never enough to stop smearing plaster
And return to the tractor.
He built his own house next to his brother’s.
In the fall, as reds and golds gave way to brown and bare,
He went hunting with his cousins in the frosty air.
They trudged the forest’s deer and rabbit runs
But found nothing at which to point their guns.
A big, old chicken hawk glided overhead.
As a lark, Wilfred brought it down, shot it dead.
He brought it home and told his wife it was a goose.
“I never saw a goose look like that!” she said doubtfully.
The cousins laughed; it was quite a joke.
He bought a Studebaker,
Drank beer at church picnics,
Raised two hound dogs,
And listened to Hank Williams on the radio.
The air was fresh in 1947.
One day, a knock on the door, barely audible.
Alfred stood outside. He’d forgotten his coat.
He said nothing, just stood there frail and thin,
Looking shyly at his feet, a kind of wildness in his eyes.
“Put this jacket on him,” Phyllis said.
“He’ll catch his death of cold.”
Wilfred put the jacket on him,
Took him gently by the arm and led him away.
Speaking not a word, Wilfred walked him home.
A little white wooden frame house with green shutters,
In the front his wife waited at the door.
That happened several times in '47 and '48.
Alfred and Wilfred raised families,
Sometimes saw each other at church,
Smiled, said hello, rarely talked.
Often when he drove his children to school,
Wilfred would point, “There’s Al,
“Taking his morning walk.”
Sometimes Alfred showed up on the doorstep,
He’d gotten lost again.
He didn’t knock, didn’t ring the bell,
Just stood there looking at his feet.
Wilfred somehow knew when he was there.
He went out to him and walked him home.
Once on the way home from the store,
Wilfred saw Alfred standing on the sidewalk
With his arms around a telephone pole
Like he was holding on for dear life.
Wilfred pulled the car over one block ahead.
“You take the kids home,” he said to Phyllis.
“I’ll tend to Al.”
Wilfred was careful to say nothing in front of the children
But through bits and pieces, he let it be known
That Alfred had seen some fighting in the war.
Through the years, though, Alfred appeared on the doorstep less and less
And finally came no more.
The kids grew up faster than a blink,
A little too young for Vietnam, thank God.
Baseball, football, and basketball games –
Life revolved around that for a while.
Then, before there was a chance to tuck them in once more,
They were grown up, off to college and a job.
In 1976, Phyllis died.
It was the first time his children had seen Wilfred cry.
She’d been sick for many years,
And they’d paid their share of doctor bills.
But then, in just twenty-four hours –
Twenty-four hours of excruciating agony,
Squirming around on the hospital bed,
Unable to keep still, unable to talk,
Moans of pain…
He held her hand, smoothed her hair,
Keenly felt his helplessness
When he saw the fear in her eyes.
The nurse asked him to leave the room.
She had some work to do.
When he came back, she was quiet,
Drops of perspiration on her neck.
He grasped her hand.
It surprised him to feel it still hot to the touch.
Her eyes were fixed on the crucifix on the wall.
– She was gone.
More years.
Wilfred liked to watch TV.
Especially the detective shows –
Columbo, Starsky and Hutch, Magnum P.I., Hawaii Five-0.
The kids visited often,
Moved back for months at a time
Before moving away again.
Wilfred finally got his pick-up truck,
Took it fishing.
Looked for mushrooms in the spring,
Persimmons in the fall,
Cultivated a garden,
Grew more vegetables than he and his neighbors could eat,
Talked of buying some land that he could farm,
But then thought better of it
He was too old for the tractor now.
More years.
Wilfred took to taking long naps on the couch
In front of the TV.
His son sometimes sat with his arm around him.
He had lost weight, appeared thin and frail.
Sometimes he would go to the grocery store
And come back empty-handed;
He’d forgotten what he’d gone to buy.
Then began the hallucinations -
Kids playing in the corners of the empty house,
Squirrels chattering that only he could hear -
Like he was dreaming, only he was awake.
Sometimes he was back in the army
In occupied Japan,
On a train rolling past
The wastelands of Hiroshima
In the distance,
Or in New Guinea.
The scars on his legs,
Did they come from shrapnel
Or insect bites from the jungles?
He never did say,
But he never wore short pants again.
Back at home,
At the dining room table
A waitress asked him for his order.
He couldn’t sleep.
Maybe that’s why
The dreams came to him in wakefulness.
One day at the nursing home,
Alfred came to visit.
The years had been kinder to Alfred.
No plaques or tangled fibers clouded his brain.
In fact, he was stronger now than when he was a young man.
His arms were thicker, his step surer,
He’d lost his stutter long ago.
“Would you like to go for a walk, Willie?” he asked.
Wilfred gave him that blank look of his.
“Let’s go for a walk,” Alfred repeated.
“It’s good for the mind.”
Alfred helped Wilfred get up from the bed.
Took him gently by the arm and led him away.
Two old soldiers.
Two Old Soldiers
Wilfred was a farmhand.
He never cared much for school.
He ran after the horse-drawn tractor,
And after the sixth grade,
His father let him jump on.
Alfred was the son of Polish immigrants
Who came through America’s front door.
Yet in the land of the free and the home of the brave,
Despite their sweat and toil, they remained quite poor.
Wilfred and Alfred were boys when they signed up for the war.
Eighteen years old amid the noise of 1944.
Nothing can adequately describe that war.
The horror.
The insanity.
The loss.
Those who survived sometimes envied those who died.
In one way or another, they carried it with them all their lives.
The rubble of Europe, the despair of Asia;
Then the surrender and the occupation.
As the world smoldered, America emerged from the ashes
Victorious and benevolent with looming prosperity.
True, Mao was on the march and Stalin was insatiable,
But the war was over, and a new era begun.
By 1946, the soldiers began their return,
Some with a swagger, some with a wound.
At homecomings, families rejoiced.
Romance and marriage resulted in a baby-boom.
Wilfred’s family lost the farm.
When he returned, he took a job
Smearing plaster on the walls of new homes.
There were many new homes then,
Enough to start a family,
But never enough to stop smearing plaster
And return to the tractor.
He built his own house next to his brother’s.
In the fall, as reds and golds gave way to brown and bare,
He went hunting with his cousins in the frosty air.
They trudged the forest’s deer and rabbit runs
But found nothing at which to point their guns.
A big, old chicken hawk glided overhead.
As a lark, Wilfred brought it down, shot it dead.
He brought it home and told his wife it was a goose.
“I never saw a goose look like that!” she said doubtfully.
The cousins laughed; it was quite a joke.
He bought a Studebaker,
Drank beer at church picnics,
Raised two hound dogs,
And listened to Hank Williams on the radio.
The air was fresh in 1947.
One day, a knock on the door, barely audible.
Alfred stood outside. He’d forgotten his coat.
He said nothing, just stood there frail and thin,
Looking shyly at his feet, a kind of wildness in his eyes.
“Put this jacket on him,” Phyllis said.
“He’ll catch his death of cold.”
Wilfred put the jacket on him,
Took him gently by the arm and led him away.
Speaking not a word, Wilfred walked him home.
A little white wooden frame house with green shutters,
In the front his wife waited at the door.
That happened several times in '47 and '48.
Alfred and Wilfred raised families,
Sometimes saw each other at church,
Smiled, said hello, rarely talked.
Often when he drove his children to school,
Wilfred would point, “There’s Al,
“Taking his morning walk.”
Sometimes Alfred showed up on the doorstep,
He’d gotten lost again.
He didn’t knock, didn’t ring the bell,
Just stood there looking at his feet.
Wilfred somehow knew when he was there.
He went out to him and walked him home.
Once on the way home from the store,
Wilfred saw Alfred standing on the sidewalk
With his arms around a telephone pole
Like he was holding on for dear life.
Wilfred pulled the car over one block ahead.
“You take the kids home,” he said to Phyllis.
“I’ll tend to Al.”
Wilfred was careful to say nothing in front of the children
But through bits and pieces, he let it be known
That Alfred had seen some fighting in the war.
Through the years, though, Alfred appeared on the doorstep less and less
And finally came no more.
The kids grew up faster than a blink,
A little too young for Vietnam, thank God.
Baseball, football, and basketball games –
Life revolved around that for a while.
Then, before there was a chance to tuck them in once more,
They were grown up, off to college and a job.
In 1976, Phyllis died.
It was the first time his children had seen Wilfred cry.
She’d been sick for many years,
And they’d paid their share of doctor bills.
But then, in just twenty-four hours –
Twenty-four hours of excruciating agony,
Squirming around on the hospital bed,
Unable to keep still, unable to talk,
Moans of pain…
He held her hand, smoothed her hair,
Keenly felt his helplessness
When he saw the fear in her eyes.
The nurse asked him to leave the room.
She had some work to do.
When he came back, she was quiet,
Drops of perspiration on her neck.
He grasped her hand.
It surprised him to feel it still hot to the touch.
Her eyes were fixed on the crucifix on the wall.
– She was gone.
More years.
Wilfred liked to watch TV.
Especially the detective shows –
Columbo, Starsky and Hutch, Magnum P.I., Hawaii Five-0.
The kids visited often,
Moved back for months at a time
Before moving away again.
Wilfred finally got his pick-up truck,
Took it fishing.
Looked for mushrooms in the spring,
Persimmons in the fall,
Cultivated a garden,
Grew more vegetables than he and his neighbors could eat,
Talked of buying some land that he could farm,
But then thought better of it
He was too old for the tractor now.
More years.
Wilfred took to taking long naps on the couch
In front of the TV.
His son sometimes sat with his arm around him.
He had lost weight, appeared thin and frail.
Sometimes he would go to the grocery store
And come back empty-handed;
He’d forgotten what he’d gone to buy.
Then began the hallucinations -
Kids playing in the corners of the empty house,
Squirrels chattering that only he could hear -
Like he was dreaming, only he was awake.
Sometimes he was back in the army
In occupied Japan,
On a train rolling past
The wastelands of Hiroshima
In the distance,
Or in New Guinea.
The scars on his legs,
Did they come from shrapnel
Or insect bites from the jungles?
He never did say,
But he never wore short pants again.
Back at home,
At the dining room table
A waitress asked him for his order.
He couldn’t sleep.
Maybe that’s why
The dreams came to him in wakefulness.
One day at the nursing home,
Alfred came to visit.
The years had been kinder to Alfred.
No plaques or tangled fibers clouded his brain.
In fact, he was stronger now than when he was a young man.
His arms were thicker, his step surer,
He’d lost his stutter long ago.
“Would you like to go for a walk, Willie?” he asked.
Wilfred gave him that blank look of his.
“Let’s go for a walk,” Alfred repeated.
“It’s good for the mind.”
Alfred helped Wilfred get up from the bed.
Took him gently by the arm and led him away.
Two old soldiers.