Another Reason For Loving Mothers Poem by michael hogan

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.