for Sgt. Tom Valle, USMC
The two-note call of mothers
for sunburnt children at the beach –
prolonged, high-pitched at the end –
is a bittersweet sound, old as time.
A friend wounded by a mortar shell
said the last thing he heard
before the red blazing in his brain
was his mother’s desperate call: TOM-EEEE
and nothing.
How he struggled
through all those weeks of darkness
running against the tangled bushes of his dying
to be home in time for supper.
This poem has not been translated into any other language yet.
I would like to translate this poem