Friday, June 3, 2011

Ironton’s Memorial Day Parade

Ironton’s Memorial Day Parade

To remember to honor and to celebrate,
To decorate the graves of those who fought…
Ironton parades through most of the middle of town—
Bands, floats, horses, clowns…
But most of all, people—
People of all types and ages.

Used to be said, if you were able,
You marched.
Whole classes of school children marched.
Men alongside the streets took off their hats,
And everyone put a hand to heart.

I remember the hours of preparation:
With chicken wire and tissue on trucks,
The band practices and marches,
Or, even Brownies getting scout cheers and songs right…
To ride in a squad car, a fire truck or an Army-Navy Duck…
Just to be in The Parade.

Now people come from everywhere to see our parade,
Our Parade…longest lasting…and proud.

May the graves be decorated,
The flag flown free;
May the flowers thrown on the River
Say thank you for liberty…

And may Ironton ever be able
To march for memory.

© Copyright, Daphne Yvonne Bradshaw, 2000.
All rights reserved.

Those Orange Poppies

Those Orange Poppies

I remember the old men standing in front of Kresges
Selling small paper poppies…
Small orange flowers on a wire
That we hooked onto ourselves with pride—
‘Though some hooked them on to show they’d paid their buck,
But me, with a mix bittersweet, mostly sad—

Were always the skies gray those days,
Threatening rain?
Or, was it my heart would burst
Seeing those men whose smiles…
Smiles that never quite hid
Deeply wounded,
Woefully sad eyes?

© Copyright, Daphne Yvonne Bradshaw, 2000.
All rights reserved.

She Never Married

She Never Married
For Vivian Taylor, A Friend and Landlady
 (*loosely based on her story)

“Sweet lover, be safe as you fly from this place
To your missions in the Pacific.
I will await your return for then do we wed
After Guam, Midway, and ‘Unspecific.’”

Many letters she wrote, many pictures she sent,
Care packages when she was able…
While meanwhile she worked as a nurse and an aide
Though times were very unstable.

Sometimes he would write when he had the time
For combat, of time, was commanding.
Assuring him forever she would be true
Even though he was not so demanding.

This gave them both hope and a measure of joy
In the face of great fearful unknowing
Of where he would be, or if he would be
A part of a blood crop then sowing.

A year thereabout after he flew
Away from his love at the airport,
Two soldiers in blue came to her home
With the most regrettable report.

She took it quite well until they were gone
Then she collapsed on the sunroom divan,
Crying, “Sweet lover, be safe as you fly from this place
Until I join you in your mission in heaven.”

© Copyright, Daphne Yvonne Bradshaw, 2000.
All rights reserved.

Flashback to Mekong: The War in Viet Nam

Flashback to Mekong: The War in Viet Nam
For Dustin Massie, Daniel Massie, David Massie,
Wayne Massie, and James Delong, My Cousins Who
All served willingly and honorably

And still the evil fought through lives
In minds and bodies all tattered
With memories of a limb or an ear
Or a child blown up and scattered.

Flashback to the now of the time when we hid
From the nightmare of still living
With a best friend’s right arm,
All that was left, of the life he was giving…

For a country who hated us…
In a country who hated us…
No reprieve.

Nineteen years old and proud of this land
Of our birth, our family, and teaching,
Many were drafted, so they couldn’t say no,
Regardless of the masses loud screeching.

War heroes, yeah right, stoned out of our minds
Blinding to terrors more real
Than any horror king knows,
And in our souls they live with us still…

For a country who hated us…
In a country who hated us…
No reprieve.

© Copyright, Daphne Yvonne Bradshaw, 2000.
All rights reserved.

A Mother Cries for Her Fallen Son

A Mother Cries for Her Fallen Son
For Mrs. Goldcamp, Our Neighbor

Never will the guns be so silent
As the silence after death
Of those fallen to fight “the cause juste.”

Is a common life so shorn
Or youth so plentiful
To be offered up this way
By the wrathful God
Who has known not childbirth
Nor the enfolding of life
Into one’s arms, one’s heart, one’s womb?

In righting wrongs,
Did my son, my own,
Die suffering?
Did he fear the end when it came?
Did he know my love
Would outlast the grave…

Was this just cause worth this blood sacrifice
Offered to the God of war…
That tears my heart always?

Ah, my son, brave man and true,
Willing soldier, mother’s pride,
Well fought against madmen gone berserk
Setting the world on fire again.

Sleep now, my son,
For the guns are now dreadfully silent
But still at ready for
Another mother’s son.

© Copyright, Daphne Yvonne Bradshaw, 2000.
All rights reserved

During World War I

During World War I
For Grandpa Earl McKinley Bradshaw

A limb for a limb, a trunk for a trunk,
Broken bodies under broken trees
Across a land of holes and shells…
And still the artillery fired,
Bombs igniting an inferno Dante never knew—
The nightmare that was.

More men died from tree fall than gunfire,
Branches of weapons old yet new
Still brought the same end.
Dead is dead regardless of how…
And the remaining few do live?

Foreign borne to soil blood knows new yet old;
Wash it now in sanguined mud,
The creosote of millennia burst aflame—
The hatred, the fear, and the passion…

Friends fought beside now gone…
A man deemed enemy wasted,
Human parts flayed bare are seen…
But not…
Can such deep wounds of land or breast
Ever heal again?

© Copyright, Daphne Yvonne Bradshaw, 2000.
All rights reserved.

The Korean War

The Korean War
For John Lewis Bradshaw, My Father

That blue square with the white letters
When sited target makes
Upon helmet or upon uniform,
Coppery, salty red lakes.

It’s not our war, but we are there
To save a peninsula from Red Peril,
We carry the war, to our dismay,
Like fish caught in a barrel.

A human wave poured out upon
The Father against the Son…
Divide them up and let them have
Demilitarized zone, not won…

Then let our soldiers coming out
Find a Red Cross no friend…
Not only give blood to pay blood
But also their own coins they spend.

© Copyright, Daphne Yvonne Bradshaw, 2000.
All rights reserved.