Lest We Forget

 Remembrance Day, November 11

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Earthgall

—in memory of Uncle Tommy and his son, my cousin Tommy Jr.

 

 

Two Thomases, a father and his son,

lie in a cemetery on a hill

that overlooks the Susquehanna. One,

a gunner with a young man’s iron will

to live, bailed from his doomed B-24,

endured Camp Shumen’s beatings, moldy bread,

survivor guilt, the aftershocks of war,

a rough divorce; yet worse times lay ahead.

 

The Army CNO. The folded flag.

The Valium.The oceans of Jim Beam.

The names imprinted on a metal tag.

The little boy in the recurrent dream.

I used to fear him. Now I realize

the sense behind his reek and glassy eyes.

 

 

 

 

 

Thomas F. Smith, Jr.

  1945-1968

 

 [Published in my Richard Wilbur Award-winning collection The Frangible Hour - University of Evansville Press, 2016. "Earthgall" is the fourth poem in the series "Days of Grass".]