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Remembering Jack
My father’s spirit died in war
Six years before my birth
Terrorized in Amsterdam
By sniper bullet bursts
Hand to hand and street by street
The liberators dared
To flush the starving remnants
Of Hitler’s cold and scared
Shrapnel took its ragged bite
The others weren’t so lucky
Daylight fire melted down
His comrades bold and plucky
With body sweating innocence
Into the mud of Holland
His living corpse was deafened by
The silence of the fallen
The hollow soldier traveled home
His lady waiting vanished
A job was promised on return
But soldier jobs were banished
His county run by meeker men
Involved in growing richer
Forgot the founders of the feast
In legions tilting pitchers
With tender hooks on sanity
My father did his best
To build a life and never face
His post-traumatic stress
“That’s for sissies, Sonny boy
Now take your life and make it
The nation’s yours, the time is now
Be sure you don’t forsake it”
So after living full and free
These many fruitful years
I thank you Jack in every way
Today you have no peers
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This November eleventh…
On a single, forlorn, foggy day
Inhale a sweet breath of freedom
Remember those who procured it
And how fragile it is
[Nov 11, 2005]
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The
Poetry of Daniel Harrison