Remembrance

By Mark Fleisher

A granite slash black as onyx
slices across the earthen path,
seemingly endless in the morning light,
names carved and chiseled into the stone,
58,307—the populations of Royal Oak
and Dearborn Heights in Michigan,
of Federal Way in Washington.

Rick is present and accounted for
on Panel 40e, Row 12
19 days from home;
There's John, Row 54 on Panel 40e,
a month served, recently graduated
from his teenage years.
I know them, I know the others,
not by name, but by kinship.
They gave me a medal,
a star of bronze suspended
from a red, white and blue ribbon,
then they took the medal back,
not enough to go around, they said.

The numbers game, again.

They insisted I fill out
a hometown news release,
even when I said my
big city newspaper wouldn't
give a damn about my medal.

And who cared about
the trauma embedded
forever in my mind
or the poison
sprayed into my cells?

The numbers game, again.

Rick and John,
they got medals, too
P as in Purple, H as in Heart,
PH for Posthumous,
No hometown news releases
to California—Sun Valley for Rick,
Redwood City for John.

Didn't know John came from Redwood City
until I looked it up the other day,
found his name on a war memorial.
I didn't know any of that when
we drove into town that October day,
parked the car, had a coffee at Starbucks,
then drove away...I wish I knew.
A couple of guys among the many
caught up in the damned numbers game.

The numbers don't tell the stories
of how many more with
shattered minds and broken bodies
struggled with their aftermaths

Uncle Ho and Uncle Sam arm wrestled,
slogging through rice paddies,
slashing through jungle,
sloshing through Delta swamp

And Uncle Ho won the struggle—
Hey, It's not JFK City,
It's not LBJ City,
It's not RMN City,
It's Ho Chi Minh City

Now more than 6,800 from new conflicts
await their monument proclaiming
their sacrifice to an uncertain cause,
heroes absent from Christmas dinner tables,
Chanukkah festivities, Native feast days,
celebrations of Our Lady.

Only 6,800—how dare I say only
for each is a lost treasure
known to me through kinship
and by a father's grieving eyes.

We excel at building monuments
to failures, convincing our conscience
absolution is granted.