The Personal Blog of Stephen Sekula

It’s raining (on veteran’s day)

“It’s raining (on veteran’s day)”
a poem by Stephen J. Sekula

It’s raining on Veteran’s Day (cliché),
and when I walked up to the wall –
rain drenching the National Mall –
I ran my hands along its dark
and glistening surface where the names
are carved, cracks in a mirror.
Their names are what is missing from the stone,
something left behind when dust is thrown
by the etching of a life into the rock.
Nearby, frozen men wander a Korean jungle,
the threat of snipers or landmines
is written in their eyes, weary and fearful.
A great pool, a field of stars, reflecting
the Atlantic, the Pacific, and Ike calling
out to those about to storm the beaches
that he believes in their devotion and skill,
to duty and to battle (but mostly, in their will).

But what is left behind when children are dressed
in gear and given a rifle and taught how to fight?
Mothers and fathers, pretending to get on with life;
the teachers who taught then how to write, and add,
and think so that they wouldn’t have to go to war
(Unless they had to go to war);
the doctor who tended their scrapes and bruises
after some schoolyard dust-up over nothing.

There is a silent bargain struck when we truck
our people off to combat in the cities or the mountains:
there is a cause worth fighting for that waits for
them when they return from bloody war.
And so, today, remember all those men and women
who sacrificed their lives in war neverending,
so that tomorrow you may teach, and build, and think,
And make this country worth defending.