Time Traveler’s Adventures #4 Poem by Robert Edgar Burns

(A FAITH BASED WORK)


I had not even made it home from the mission I was on last.
But I was floating on the ocean, in a large boat’s rescue raft!
The bouncing made me very sick, as the raft spun side to side.
I saw men swimming toward me in the rising waves and tides.

When my craft rose high then dropped into a frightening swale,
In view I saw some burning boats as my face turned flush and pale.
I reached outside and grabbed an arm, then another to pull them in.
A shark came close and circled by, bearing his teeth and awesome fin.

One said, “I am John Kennedy, of the PT Boat 109.”
I said “Hello Mr. President, the honor is all mine.”
He replied, “You are delirious, alone here in this raft.”
“But shipwrecks often cause this, as it tends to turn men daft! ”

I knew I could not change the past and it made me oh so sad.
And the future that awaited him I remembered turned out bad.
For the time I was observing, I had not yet even been born.
But I along with my countrymen knew the time he made us mourn!

While on a Motor Torpedo Boat, this Lieutenant Junior Grade,
In the Pacific Theater, became a hero reluctantly made.
Now had his story ended there I am sure he’d have been just fine.
But greatness is often thrust on men, I’d say it happens all the time.

Suddenly I find myself back inside of my machine.
I hear it belch and sputter as I leave the place I’ve been.
The worth of a man may not be known until his life is done.
It’s found inside those left behind long after he is gone.