A world taken by iron and eagles,
With boys as young as 12,
Could I have stomached the grit of sand and blood at Normandy?
Or enraged frost of Stalingrad?
Lullabied by the rumblings of the Panzer,
And bouncing like a kid on the legs of his grandfather,
It must’ve been hell,
But who am I to know?
We shared the same oath,
And scoured the same earth,
Finding manhood,
In no man’s land,
But I dug no foxholes,
No rancorous winters at Bastogne,
When nights grew distilled,
We both drunk from an initiation
Only a few ever tasted,
As the sun snuggles into a blanket of horizon,
Silence heals our reprisals,
And it’s only you and me.
You and Me
Published
War Poems 