[Poem]
If memory serves, and I usually assume that it does (but am always open to being contradicted), I clipped this poem, one of several still idling aound in my wallet as mentioned below, from Harper’s Weekly in January or February of 1991 while, literally, and I know that ‘literally’ sounds misplaced but really, watching on CNN as Bush the Elder’s tanks rolled into Kuwait and I, as a (reasonably) young soldier myself quite personally was wondering if I would soon be, in person, rolling with them, the fact that my so-called studies of Arabic were still so woefully unfinished notwithstanding.
A year later, with a little more Arabic, after the tungsten/depleted uranium dust had more or less settled, I gently dredged this creaséd poem from a cloudy photo pouch intended for pictures of loved ones if any from a flattened wallet in some wrinkled desert BDUs in row 28 of some 747 leased by some airline to some branch of the U.S miliary to read it as we approached what turned out to be, I recall vividly, Rome, en route to Kuwait City, all of us, Rashid-al-Akbar and Rajul-al-Sharq and Tariq Lueck and myself with our stupid clattery M-16s jammed between our knees because god forbid our dumb guns, sorry, WEAPONS, go as checked luggage.
Oh, and you guys with the dumb guns between your knees? That’s a no smoking section. Yeah. Soldiers smoke. Why should they ever not?
By George Starbuck. From Grand Street, No. 36, a quarterly published in New York City. Starbuck, the author of eight books of poetry, live[d] in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.
*This form is recommended for beginners. It is as simple as it looks. Fourteen characters to a line. Difficulty arises only when a footnote is required. Then the poet must contrive a thirteen-character line in place of the canonical fourteener, so as to leave room for the asterisk. Most poems in the form evade the difficulty by doing without footnotes, save for poems like this, which are designed to be put in textbooks.
Wonderful.
Rome?
I thought the trip there went Savannah-Shannon-Cairo-KC. On the way back was KC-Paris-NYC-Savannah.
We landed at Rome early in the morning and the cleaners came on and I asked one of them to bring me a newspaper in Italian. On this my memory is unwavering. On any other points of our itinerary coming or going I have no memory whatsoever, other than that the MRE I ate while we waited interminably at Hunter Army Airfield outbound was Slice, Ham, One Each. I do recall that there was a great deal of wagering about the homeward legs of our journey, but remember only not caring where we stopped and that they showed “Scent of a Woman”.
Ever since that meme post re: Anna, I’ve been wondering what creas’ed poems you carry around. While cleaning, I recently found floating around on a crumpled PostIt note something that had been in my wallet for years. I still don’t know how it got out of my wallet, or how I happened to find it and unwrap it like a little faded present, instead of just tossing it as just one more wadded bit of yellow paper. It’s from the Lawrentian noting Wade’s death; I found it in Dad’s study. Ironically, it is Horace:
Happy the man, and happy he alone, He who can call the day his own. He who, secure within, can say, Tomorrow do thy worst, for I have liv’d today.
Along with the quote is an essay about Wade. I wrote down “…Let us find the strength and inspiration to commit ourselves as spouses, as parents, as workers, as teachers, as students, and as members of our communities to strive for excellence and humanity in all we do.”
P.S. George the First’s invasion of Kuwait was mid/late February ’91, I think, because I was on my way home from my first Lamaze class when the news came on the car radio and I burst into tears wondering how I could be bringing a child into this. But she seems okay with it.
P.S.S.
Loved ones if any
, Somehow poignant with no comma,
is as good a poem as I’ve heard,
anyway.
The first and last stanzas are my favorites. Thinktwiceness is a wonderful word.
Very much appreciating learning this lovely poem. Still pondering (Ponder-get it?!) how Hadrian’s Wall fits into this, though.