The Men Of My Command Poem by Cheylee Miller

Tis midnight and I stand
Amid the sleeping forms of men-
The men of my command,
And as their troubled murmurs stir
The quiet of the night.
I wonder at the subject of their dreams.
What matter if tomorrow I command again;
Tonight they are my Sons.

This one - the father lying at my feet
Laughs and plays (in dream) with the son he's never seen.
(God grant his safe return)
And over there, a dozen paces to my right,
A boy - a man now, he's just past twenty-one,
Sobs a name - his brother's.
(Today's long - looked for mail notified him
of his brother's death.)

And on the other side -
But what was that? A child's frightened cry?
No! I see from whence it came.
That youngster there who's writhing in his sleep.
He's dreaming of the shelling we received the other day
(and who can blame him, 'twas his first!)

'Marylin! ' Who's voice cried out? Oh yes!
I know the man, and the name he speaks - his wife's,
Spoke in remorse for that last letter, penned in anger's heat.
I censored it, you see, and know its content.
He'll be glad tomorrow when I give it back.
I withheld it from the mail, for I knew his anger'd cool,
And he's regret the sending of it.

But now my reverie is broken;
Other thoughts and sounds impinge upon my mind.
(The distance Sentinel's sharp Challenge;
The Jackal's cry; the scudding clouds that chase the
moonlight from the sky, to let it reappear again
to form a new kaleidoscope of sight.)
And all my present Sons lie quiet in their sleep.

I'm thinking now about an absent son,
My own - who sleeps so far away
Beneath the same deep, scintillating Canopy to which
I turn my eyes
To ask God's blessing on all my Sons,
Both here and there -
Those whose dreams I read, and him,
Whose future dreams I'll share
(God willing)
And pray that I might be a faithful father now -
And then.

Written by my great Grandfather Major Alvah M. Miller