Words Not Spoken, Truths Untold
My Grandfather never spoke
Of the Great
War.
Instead he told of dancing
With French peasant girls.
Sometimes I
wanted to dance
With my Grandfather,
But he had left his legs
In a
foxhole in Belgium.
My Father never spoke
Of World War II.
Instead
he told of
Sharing stories around a campfire
On Guadalcanal.
Sometimes
late at night
A dozen years later,
He would scream and writhe in
pain
With the Malaria
He couldn't leave in the Pacific.
My cousin never spoke
Of the Korean
Conflict.
Instead he told
Us how much our letters meant
In that cold
forgotten place.
Sometimes I would like to write
To him again, but
The
telegram forgot to mention
The zip code for someone killed in
action.
My husband never speaks
Instead he
tells me
How beautiful the flowers were.
Sometimes in July
When
fireworks crack and sparkle
He cowers in a closet,
Holding his head
And
calling out,"Incoming! Incoming!"
Do I speak to my children
Of wars gone and those
yet to be?
I can't begin to know
The horror or the exhileration.
I've
never been there.
But sometimes I tell them
Of Peace and the
price
That some have paid
For this illusive gift.
And if I never spoke
Of war?
How would they
understand
About honor, courage and patriotism?
But sometimes I have to
tell them
About greed, power and carlessness.
Because war isn't always
what it's said to be,
And if there is a God
She doesn't take sides.