Poetry & Prose by Jo VonBargen

(For the tearful vet viewed on PBS
and all his fellow wounded)

I came up over the rise
said the vet, to find myself face
to face with death

a German soldier
pointing his rifle straight
at my chest; I had no chance
to raise mine

we stood there awhile, youth
to youth, desire to
desire, hair the same color,
tandemly clothed in
drab weeds of war, intent
on a mission planned out by
strangers, safe
and sequestered in a room
full of maps, far, far away from
this once verdant
meadow, this river
of blood

I saw in his eyes not man,
not monster, but an unwelcome
glimpse of forever; he saw
in mine a quivering
flame, unready, unwilling
to be snuffed to that
darkness ahead of my time

in that frozen moment, he
summoned a courage far
beyond killing for
country or cause; his eyes
slowly softened, freeing
the breath I’d held as
my last, and, shaking his
head, he dropped to
the ground the cold, hard
steel, leaning upon it
as if it were now a cane

he said in a soft, wistful voice,
for you, the war is over

I live every hour, each
undeserved minute, weighed
with the horror of
knowing for certain I’d never
have been that brave
or that kind

–Jo 2008