The Brave

I helped carry you to that hole,

  That they dug deep into the ground;

    Balancing the only duty left,

       With the peace I hoped you had found.

I stood stiffly at attention,

  And all the others did the same;

    They read aloud the proud epitaphs,

      And we cringed when they said your name.

How is it that this hole found you,

  And yet there isn’t one for me?

    Is it that you have become “The Brave,”

      So that I can become “The Free?”

Birds startle, and then fly overhead,

  As the mourners start leaving this scar;

    That was cut deep into Mother Earth,

      To take you from here, just as you are.

Uniforms sag on sad shoulders;

  We finish the duty at hand.

    I salute you as the darkness falls,

      Upon Freedom’s bloodiest land.

But in the years ahead, will people know

  Of those whose valor got us this far?

    After you, the Brave, flew to Valhalla,

      And left us down here, just as we are.

From "War Words and Other Poems" an unpublished collection.