THE WALL - 2
I never went to Vietnam,
had no dear friends
lost forever in the steaming jungle.
So, why do I cry whenever I see
The long black shining Wall
Of The Memorial that never sleeps?
Why do I cry for its eternal flames,
the honor guard in tattered battle clothes -
bronze lions of a million man army -
who stand there always on the lawn,
to guard and honor their sleeping brothers?
Why do I cry when I see the names -
and the people touching and rubbing the names -
and the people peering through their reflections
looking for their lost ones,
who sit among the stars?
And why do I always think
of my dear departed Dad,
who fought so hard to find the words
which staggered off like seasick sailors
into a starless night?
He was the little Jewish boy,
in knit cap and short pants,
hands held high
on the way to the death camps.
And I'm the little American boy,
in knit cap and short pants,
saluting a rider-less horse
that dances on a gray November day.
I know it now - The flags and the flowers,
and the pictures and the letters,
and the poems stuffed in the cracks
are the words of love I hadn't said,
and the tears I couldn't find,
when my dear Father died.
And that is why I'll always cry!
©Copyright 2004 by Paul Averill Liebow
Author’s Note: In honor of my parents who served in WWII
Averill Abraham Liebow: Lieutenant Colonel in the US Army Medical Corps, who went to study the effects of the atomic bomb in Hiroshima and published his personal diary twenty years later as "Encounter with Disaster".
Carolyn Gott Liebow: Captain in the US Army Medical Corps, who served her country as a nurse in the Pacific Theater, so somebody's son would not have to die alone.