'Life Is Really Amazing, ' He Says Again Poem by Gert Strydom

Maybe it's the way we approach life
that makes it either bad or great or good,
that set to a day set an intention and the mood,
where a soldier I have written about in strife

is again happy and still going strong and alive.
He had been in Izyum in the wood.
As he drinks coffee from a flask, has food,
as a tool he uses a kind of survival knife

and now he is in Bahkmut in a trench,
with Russian enemies on three sides close,
he points out his AK, his sniper-rifle,
calls it: 'a crazy situation, ' do coffee in a flask in a glove clench.
'It's a hot day, ' he smiles where others would be morose,
as if nothing in the world could his joy stifle.

2
There is a smart-phone on his breast,
there is an open aria with a lot of white snow,
at his back some covering of bushes with nowhere to go
that he brought joy, the day is great I acquiesced,

the situation may become dangerous I have assessed:
from three directions the enemy can death bestow,
he is like before scouting: do enemy positions know,
for the moment of his transmission I am blessed,

he looks young: is probably only eighteen,
on two sides are huge spaces of open ground,
to his left more covering of bush and the enemy.
At the same age I had years back in the military been,
as I at a time had been they almost did him surround:
as before he is sharp, aware and happy.
© Gert Strydom