Sleepless nights... -- War Stories!

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Date Posted: Mon, August 25 2008, 22:43:34
Author: Don Poss
Author Host/IP: cpe-75-82-190-17.socal.res.rr.com / 75.82.190.17
Subject:

Sleepless nights...

Gents:

Although our bulletin board is not a poetry-bulletin board, it is often used for such. Late at night, like now, my sleepless brain dwells upon a comment or poem in that vast attic emptiness of mush, and for reasons known but to itself and for its own amusement. Personally, I would prefer to sleep, but "it" is still kicking around something from a couple days ago, and won't grant me rest until I deal with it in whatever unknown manner the ID wants, when I can correctly guess what �it� is.

For instance ... a friend posed a question that compelled one to consider the good and bad experiences of war and life in general. My brain thinks that we are lucky to have fought and lived when so many fought and died. I think, overall, we would agree. That brings me to consider the life-experiences differences for those who lived, and those that did not. Obviously, �they� died by the thousands in their teens and twenties, and a few were older. �They,� for the most part, never had a family, or grandchildren, as most of �us� have, and still enjoy. And there is the what-if game my addled brain plays when it thinks I have not pondered �whatever� enough to deserve a little sleep. "What-if" the not-meant-to-be child could ask a question ... what would it be? So here goes, with a short poem:

I Should have Been...
Cherub thoughts of a veteran...
� Copyright 2008, by: Don Poss

What happened, grandpa
Why can�t I hold your hand?

Am I not alive
because you died in that foreign land?

What of my grandma
Whom you never met?

Does she have grand-children
or unknowable regrets?

I reach out my hands to you and her
And grasp fleeting shadows...
That never were...

What happened, grandpa?

Don Poss

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