Field of Freedom

A fter school play was always a given, F or there were so many others to play with. I was part of the "Boomer" generation... E verything came so easy to us. L ater, in my studies, I became interested in History, D elving into the watershed moment of WW II. O nce I started reading a book on it, I could not put it down. F reedom, I thought, was just another dictionary word. W hen I began to look more closely at what it cost, H ead and Heart started to see that period more clearly. I realized that there was so much more to it than T he names of places where battles were fought, E numerated in the books I read and films I watched. C an you imagine a World at War, R educing the lives of so many to give us the freedom we enjoy? O nce I traveled to Hawaii and visited the Punch Bowl Cemetery. S eeing the graves of some who fought in that war S eeing the cost of my freedom...in that Field of White Markers. E very time now when I think of "The Greatest Generation", S ome tears well up, for my freedom's humble veneration. This is an ACROSTIC. To my knowledge, there is no set rhyme scheme or required number of lines or syllables. What the form must have, however, is a word or thought spelled out by using the first letter of each successive line, which summarizes the meaning of the poem. This is one of my favorite forms for several reasons. It is difficult to write a concise poem in this form. It is thought provoking for the writer to keep on point. It is much easier for the reader to understand the writer's intent by the Vertical word/s spelled out by the first letter of each line. The subject can be short or long, serious or funny, or just nonsense. It does, however, make you work at it. written: 12/14/15 by: Dan Cwiak for the contest: Poetry Writing #1 sponsor: Broken Wings