Today is Memorial Day. Thank you for all of those who have served, are currently serving, and will serve in the future. #weremember #memorialday
He'd sit me down
every Memorial Day.
To remind me
that it was not
simply
A day for barbecues
and no school.
This shit is real, he'd say.
He'd show me pictures
of young men,
Once boys with long hair,
now bears,
Defending God-knows-what
for God-knows-who.
They were just like me and you,
he'd say.
The faces, tan and leathery,
and jagged, but smooth
Came through. I could tell
They knew
they were aging
Far too soon.
Wet from the rain and hot jungle
Claws,
Their eyes were etched with
Beauty and promise.
Some smiled.
They were good guys, he'd say.
The people wanted freedom,
but they spit on me
when I came home.
They cursed the very shoes
I wore
to carry the blood
of my brothers.
Freedom isn't free, he'd say.
When he returned home
to New York in 1969,
his mother knew
she'd have to walk a fine line
of fragile shells
And patient wires
because he was
angry that he had,
and they hadn't.
Do not let the TV men glamorize this for you,
he'd say.
Before falling asleep on those
Long afternoons in May,
I thought of bears and boyhood
And bravery
And youth,
And plastic Santas on top
of a foreign roof,
symbols for strangers
Celebrating birth.
Some came home to celebrate their own.
For those who didn't,
Fallen, but not alone,
We remember
and we mourn.
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