OF WAR AND...

about a loved one's return from viet nam

OF WAR AND...

remember when YOU came home
from that WAR...
and
everything was shining with LOVE...
and
i took grandmother's egg shell china
down from the far shelf
for a special ceremony
of honey cakes and coffee, brandy laced
to celebrate your coming home
whole
to me...
and
in your strong hands trembling
the ancient china shattered...
and
we spent hours,
days,
weeks,
months,
years...
trying to make the pieces fit together,
but something was lost,
so shatter powdered that the cup
was never whole again
like YOU
even now
forty years after coming home from that WAR...

Reviews

[Perkele.7885]

I came back a different fellow as I was a boy when I went there and a hardened veteran when I returned. I had also found the Lord while I was there. I had come back embittered and against my wishes but, the Navy insisted that I go to a stateside hospital for continuing care.

[jeannemarie coulter]

so many were lost over there and many more came home broken in their heartsoul...i am glad you are here in my world sharing you images and thoughts so very well with us...thank you...

[dan]

There is no question that war changes a person into a composite of themselves, looking pretty much the same but loved ones know that the things they did and saw will be with them forever. I was in the Navy for 6 years and though I didn't see wartime action the experience changed me in ways I could never have imagined. A very feeling write well penned. take care...dan

[jeannemarie coulter]

young men came back from that to such a difficult welcome at home...i think that added to the horror of the war itself...in korea and in viet nam we seemed to rate the success of each day upon a body count rather than on territory gained...which is different from the wars preceding them...thank you for the read and response to my word tapestries....jc

[....................]

i will not pretend to understand how war remains with the soldiers who fight the and return with them tucked into the fabric of their souls, reliving them time and time again... this is such a stark, visceral write about the deeper impact of war on soldiers and again, as I have found myself lately, I was completely drawn in by the comfort with which you seem to write... I could picture the speak trying year after year to put that cup back together... this is a timeless and universal piece... beautifully written!

[wordman]

a great write,and the pieces will never fit

[jeannemarie coulter]

thank you...the china in the poem came over from japan in 1907...it is so fragile that if you break it shatters into fine powder and is never whole again as were so many young men who came home from that war...

[wordman]

yeah,i know a few...your welcome

[jacob erin-cilberto]

i lived through that time...several friends came back from Nam...and they were different---something was and always will be missing...the pieces just never fit the same again...and relationships never fit either.

[jeannemarie coulter]

thank you jacob, this poem was written based on an actual event which happened when i was visited by an old high school friend who went to viet nam and returned...we actually shared coffee and his hands were shaking so much he dropped one of my grandmothers eggshell china cups and it really shattered beyond repair just as that war hsd shattered his heartsoul...thank you for understanding

[The Rock And Roll Cowbo..]

They say war changes a person, it is seen everyday the effects... it has to be tough when the one you love is not the person you remember.