6th Period Reading Class

ELD room at the High School in a smallish town,
Tim O"Brien is the subject on the page, his book,
"The Things They Carried" - so poignant for me,
I was their age, 13, 14, 15 when Vietnam
was a place of misery and death
for my generation at the mercy,
of my parents generation.
 how to translate, to people who were 4 when the
Twin Towers went down in that apocalyptic cloud of smoke.

I gather my courage in response to the quiet apathy of these
who are the reading challenged, who come to class and zone out,
Who read words which are only words, empty of inspiration
Who do not know yet how to ask, because they do not envision
the questions yet.

For ten minutes I speak -
Of the men in my life and their own war stories.

Louis, my quiet grandfather
Driving his horse cart in France, age of 19,
the cart full of supplies
and he stops at a stream for water to bring the horses
while he is away, a bomb destroys the cart

And his son, alive then because his father survived
the war to end all wars
Robert becomes a navigator
flying planes to drop bombs
On targets in Japan.


My brother, alive because these fathers survived these world
wars,
he becomes a pacifist,
even as the draft lottery has his name at 18
registered or jail

56,000 of my generation perished in that one.

The students stopped their fidgeting, their eyes focused in my direction
It is dangerous to speak of politics,
but a story paints a picture,
A story carries the listener
makes the speaker human.
They listened, quietly for the first time in that hour.
A truth fell upon the room like a soft blanket.
A pretense was pulled away.

And when I came to the end, I hardly knew what I had said,
as though the spirit had take over,
and all the words flowed from some other consciousness,
from some deep pain of the recent Iraqi amputee,
from the old Vets for Peace who were not allowed
 to march in the Auburn Veterans Day
parade,
from William Stafford, and all the men
who dared to be the rare CO's
in WWII - The " just" war.

From the young vets now, only the age of my sons,
committing suicide or drowning in alcohol
It came, from a higher place and
The wounded and dead helped me tell it.

I only hope to honor them
by breaking the cycle
somehow
someday
by
telling
stories.