A Soldier's Return Poem by O. A.

A Soldier's Return

For Sarah and all those Ladies awaiting...

Incalzando

Through burning fields of balsam with overcast thunder-filled skies
to the seasonal floods of the Danube River in thigh-high muearth
the man who walks the broken path in the aftermath of war --
psychological, physical, or metaphysical
does the deed for the love his regiment cannot give him
and that is the love of his one
Lady awaiting

Days gone by with nothing said weighs heavy on the mind,
and in the beacon of the sender
now with hopes of lighting the way home in the darkest nights.
If not with scarce words of motivity, then with thoughts of clairvoyance
it should be won
because in the heat of passion this L____ becomes the real battle.
The heart beats torridly on this field.
It is in the mutiny of these arms a victorious soldier can die
on both sides.

The men who line her bedside know nothing of a hero
until tears are bled through inflicted wounds of solidarity
and the uncertainty that follows in a subtle rejection
of not wanting to stay but not really wanting to go --
She is then colder than the man she loves
who is in the compound warmed by paid Hellcats
in an indigo round.

There is a word that undermines 'lonely.'
I believe it is the word 'alone.'

She needs to see him uniformed, shapeless, or nascently anew;
know he's out-trod the mountainous skyline
crossed the ocean one wave at a time
to finally lay ruptured, hell-bent,
and knocking at her door...
until this Lady awaiting

is waiting no more.

O.A.