Ode to a Lost Warrior

by

Ann Levingston Joiner

 

 

The Beginnings

 

Another dying warrior stands defiant,

Hundreds of withered arms each ending

in five gnarled fingers

          clinging tenaciously

to the final products of its life

          (perhaps remembering green youth and the too-rapid loss

                   of briefly white, then red and bleeding petals)

 

No match for the battling boy whose

          nimble fingers deftly pluck away the

                   tightly clutched tufts,

dropping them into the canvas sack

          several times longer than the boy is tall. 

 

Ignoring his own trepidation,

he boldly peers down long rows

          of similar dying warriors - their

                   fibrous balls waiting mutely

for him in the Texas sun.

 

The endless spheres of white

take on a cloud-like haze as the boy

          dreams of greater battles yet to come. 

More formidable enemies - worthy opponents

to overcome with greater honor. 

                   (In his pocket lies heavily

          one tiny brazen shell

          to be put to use when this day's

          work is done.)

 

The long sack finally bulging the boy

turns it over to be weighed

          and takes his meager wages - too little

                   to buy food,

and so picks up the rifle and

loading it with the single shell

heads to a world more friendly and inviting. 

 

 

 

 

In the woods, alone, moving silently,

          feeling

          finally at home - one with the

shimmering late-day beauty 

          sharp ears detect a rustle

          of leaves overhead - sharp eyes a flick

                   of bushy tail - the gun swung up

                             deftly, one shot and it is done. 

The single shell hit home.  He claims the prize

which means one night less hungry.

 

 

The gnawing lessened in their bellies he puts

his brothers and sisters to bed and

                    returns to the chair

          where his mother sits, long

chestnut hair released, hands still in

          her lap,  twisted, cramped fingers

                   aching again from too much use. 

 

The boy kneads them gently, desperately watching

her face for response, seeing only a

          vacant stare from a heart

grown cold from too little love, too much work, and too many children,

                   feeling only relief.

The abusive man they call husband and

 father is once again absent.  Not until the

boy has gone down to a restless sleep does

          she pick up his one pair of

                   cast-off overalls and wash them,

                             leaving them to dry by the stove for morning.

 

The denim, faded and frayed from

          too many washings has drawn

          the trousers even shorter.

The boy, seeing his bare ankles 

envisions the coming derision

           and perceives grimly that

                   there will be more fights this day.

 

The teacher watches him arrive - his reddish hair

          and freckled face washed shining clean.

As he moves quickly to his desk,

          she resists asking of his absences,

          again so many days.  His classmates watch.

 A curious mix of disdain and admiration.  Among the boys

          willing to risk their parents displeasure,

          he has his followers

but the chestnut-haired girl in starched linen

                   sits scornfully in front of him.

 

Inside his desk, his one reprieve.

He lifts and gently fingers the books - escaping to

                   a distant world of hope and dreams

                             and full bellies.

 

But even in this joy - a sadness lurks.  Already

          he knows the limit to these days. This respite, too brief.

 His mother and the other children are

          too hungry - his useless father gone longer

                   and longer periods of time.

 

 

 

The Adventure

 

 

The boy-man crouches

          in the wet, muddy foxhole, listening

          to the incessant wind mixed with

                   the sounds of exploding shells. 

 

At night, his dreams intermingle scenes: stark

white fields of cotton, his mother's early

          but solacing death,

          stalking this formidable

                   enemy with one shell in his gun.

 

Trading the foxhole to crouch in the now-familiar

          whale-like belly of the landing craft -

"I hope I get to see France," he wrote to a friend.  Approaching the shore,

          remembering, he laughs,

                   almost hysterically.

 

Ashore, amid the whistling and exploding

          shells echoes the rat-tat of the machine gun. 

The men who follow him look

          to him with eyes like the defiant school-boys

                   of that long-ago time. 

 

The gun must not be met head-on. Choosing a safe,

                   circuitous route, he goes out

          alone - but not quite alone -

                   followed by his closest friend who

                             refuses to go back.  The gun

                   burps out again

                              his friend falls.  (A letter from his

          daughter in his pocket: "Deer Daddy, I am in school") 

Remembering the too-little time he spent in school

          he pictures the child, in class with

                   her spelling lessons, oblivious

                   to the fact that she is suddenly fatherless.

 

Rage wells up, finally - his

          too few school days, his mother's eyes

                   as vacant while half-alive as his

                             now-dead friend in his arms. 

 

He charges the hill, seeing

in the face of every enemy the face of

          his own too-absent father. 

(If the only escape with honor was in a body bag

he could at least go home with his friend.) 

At length he stands alone upon the hill,

          alive.  The enemy lying dead around him.

Returning to his friend he sheds his last tears.

 

 

The house stood dark with shadows and the

          smell of death and he knew the enemy

          still lurked in darkened places.  When

the evil creature with

his father's face and glaring

          blood-shot eyes appeared, he fired at once.

In the shattering slivered glass he saw

          the disintegration of

                   his own reflection. 

(His buddies joked about a Texan

          beating himself to the draw.)

 

Stalking through the forest, the

          new brass bars he did not want burning

          into his shoulders, weighing them

                   even more heavily, he heard a rifle crack

          finally felt the searing pain that even

                   in its intensity came as relief. 

 

Cool sheets and the woman in

white with chestnut hair - a temporary reprieve -

                   "Next time," he wrote home, "I guess

                             they'll tag me for keeps."

 

Too soon back at the front the orders

come through: "Hold the road at all costs." 

          (the cost already having taken

          four-fifths of the one hundred-plus men

          under his command.  Their only support

                   two useless tanks, one already in flames.) 

Those left looked to him with eyes

          too much like siblings and school boys so that

          when he saw the enemy - over two hundred

strong with six lumbering tanks approaching -

ten times outnumbered, the phone he used

          to call in distant artillery not enough - he jumped

upon the useless burning tank,

          shoving bodies aside,

          ignoring "smell of burning flesh"

to fire the tank's machine gun, raking

          repeatedly the approaching enemy - next time

                   they'll get me for keeps and body bags

          the only honorable escape and so mr. artillery man

                   what are your post war plans? 

Surprised to find himself alive as the enemy

          retreats, the boy-warrior

          gathers up his men....

 

 

 

Coming Home

 

Back in the glaring Texas sun

           the plane lands.  Beneath him

          are crowds cheering and he

                   flinches at artillery salutes and

                   cringes at endless speeches.  The medals

on his chest already an albatross - he endured the shame

          of being sent home a living trophy to the

          blood and death of too many friends. 

 

 

Unknowingly become an ICON, the

          man-boy-soldier with too little schooling soon

                   found himself in a celluloid world of too much

          light and too many happy endings:  Too many people

                   clamoring to touch him.

 

With the praise and

          applause came the tiny

          chestnut-haired women, the second

giving him the only prize he

truly valued - two healthy sons who would never

          know hunger or the pain felt and rage directed at

                   a father whose absence at least meant

                   the absence of brutality. 

(Later he would speak of animals and

children as the only all-good creatures left.)

 

Too often he lived in a

too-light make-believe world of good

          always defeating evil 

          from which he reconciled himself with

                   "It beats pickin' cotton,"

and knowledge that he at least gave

children hope of making a better world. 

 

But sometimes

at night, escaping the still persistent dreams

          of blood and battle and dying buddies

          he would find himself in too-dark places. 

Places where he saw other fathers - fathers

          with pock-marked arms and such powerful syringes

                   the men left their daughters to

                             play in the dirt and their wives to

                             sell themselves.  Here was another war

more terrible in its hopelessness - a war

          he fought in the dark while

          in the daylight hours he gave children

                   joy and hope in happy endings as he found what

                   joy and hope he could in his two growing sons and

the too few distant friends which he kept

          at bay because he could not bear more losses.

 

But a time came when even the

celluloid-world-where-good-guys-always-win-and-only-villains-die

           was fading - fading

                   as the world was changing

                   as wars and threats of wars continued in

the real-life world.  Working with the

          make-believe he journeyed to

                   a land where

children with yellow skin and black

          eyes which looked strangely like the eyes

                   of his brothers and sisters

                   (and now his own sons) - children who

were losing their fathers in a war - a war

          that would soon see still more

          young warrior-fathers from his own land

                   die or come home maimed and fated to wake screaming

from the same dreams he still

          waked from.

 

Still he fought to keep alive

a much-needed vision:

          a world of light and hope for his own children

          and the growing number of fatherless children. 

 

This vision took him on

          a mission - and a small plane

          carried him to his final

                   destiny with a Virginia mountainside - a destiny

which finally tagged him for keeps. 

 

Our memories of the boy-warrior-man

          too quickly fade. 

After a too-long time

          we finally begin to remember.