In Pacem

We missed it, Dad__ that last embrace that bonds the blood of men who always faced into the wind of love and never knew its source. So arrived the days in early fall. We settled for a handshake then, and after all the years that we pretended we were close, the words, like leaves, were also glown away: weightless, dry and crumbling. There they stood, two helpless men without so much as one distracting tear, who lied about the year to come, and of those dear and fresh remembrances beyond the day of parting. You knew the last stop would be Arlington, albeit not on Chaplain's hill where sleeping comrades filled the ground you loved. the slope beneath that crowning tree awaited you. So there it was, we heard once more the sound of Taps, the slap against the sky of twenty-one explosions, and a young man's tribute to an officer who wore two crosses and a silver leaf-- who marched with his old comrades years before. Now as this aging son who would embrace with spirit arms, I wish you rest, old soldier, there to find the peace you never knew in war... the peace we shared that final afternoon, on Chaplain's Hill. ~