Black Granite

A hippie hocked a louie on Sammy

when he landed in San Francisco.

Sammy didn't respond;

he just wanted to make

his connecting flight home.

Sammy wasn't proud about

some of things he did in the war;

so he figured he probably

deserved the garlands of disdain

an ungrateful nation bestows

upon itself in fits of self contempt.

Sammy shut down and tuned out,

soon his heart was as dead

as a tombstone until he visited

the monument.  

He would often recall the story

as he approached the darkened wall

that he could sense ghosts loosening

themselves from the black granite.   

Sammy swore that Jimmy Lynch

who went MIA on the final week of his tour

gave him a big hug and told him

as long as the beer stays cold

and he don’t lose the church key,

everything's groovy and he’s

hanging tough until the rest

of the guys show up.

Jimmy pointed to the Lincoln Memorial

at one end of the mall and to the

Washington Monument at the other,

emphatically stating that our monument

was forever linked with the greatest Americans.

Yeah meeting up with Jimmy

helped Sammy to start shaken

off some real bad stuff.

Mazie knew her husband for a

month before they got married.

A week later Freddie was off to Vietnam.

Freddie was KIA during the Tet Offensive

and his repatriated remains are peacefully

at rest in the red clay of Georgia.

Mazie came to the monument

a few years after it was dedicated.  

She was struck by all the keepsakes

people left at the base of the wall;  

Zippos, baby pictures, a copy of

The Catcher in the Rye, a fifth

of Makers Mark, Pink Teddy Bears,

votive lights, a 57 Chevy model,

a left handed catchers mitt, and

a pack of Lucky Strikes.

She palmed rosaries and

crucifixes that salved sore

running wounds and David’s

interlaced Star sounding a Shofar

pleading a case for peace.

Mazie is most moved by the names.  

Rows and rows of names. The scroll

begins in a modest manner and

as the wall climbs the names

of a country's vigilant sons and

daughters tower over her head.  

So much living history; spoken

in the unique accent of a country’s

diverse plethora of luminous tongues.

The stories written into the black granite

tell a tale from every state; claiming

the ears, heart and mind of every citizen.

Each chiseled letter captures every bit

of sun and deep creeping shadow

inching across a great nation.

“I’m  71” says Mazie.  “When I look

upon the wall I see my 21 year old

Freddie as he looked on the finest

day of his life.  He will never look

any other way to me.”

 

“I didn't want to go to see it,” Franny said,

“a cold piece of stone won’t bring my son back.”

Franny did finally go...

When it rains the wall weeps.  

The wall wept all day,

the first time Franny went.

Many were rubbing

the impressions of

dearly departed names.

Franny too, kneels to the

presence of her son’s name.

She touches the wall's

damp surface; wiping

the drizzle from her

child's sodden face

with a mother's

grateful fingers.

Kneeling before his semblance,

she rubs his etched edges

onto tiny bits of paper.

She sees him,

made manifest in the stone.

As if through a glass darkly,

a found son looks back,

onto the face of a caring mother.

Franny hangs onto the quiet

memory of his voice,

shimmering in the soft lilt

of a warm dark stone.

This deep core Vulcan gneiss,

at last emerged from the hardest stuff, 
sculpts a perfect likeness of a tear stained nation.

In Honor of

The Vietnam Veterans Memorial

Washington DC

Oakland

Veterans Day

2013

The Harmonizing Four: Rock of Ages