SavageTimes

Godspeed, soldier, and may blessings follow you

into the desert, where the night-air is cold

and bites back like bullets stinging the skin,

where the sun is harsh and falls hard

into the sand, where the loneliness can overcome

and the hopelessness might undo  anyone.

At home, your  t-shirt proclaims you “The Best Dad

In the World.”  At home, unfettered laughter is the reason

for being.  At home, small hands sneak into your own

like dreams within dreams and roadside bombs are just news bulletins

on CNN that you watch, with the rest of us, on our HDTV wide screens,

with our cell phones within arm’s reach, friends and family and every day freedoms

part of our daily expectations, our assumptions. But you stand up,

You leave all that behind in pure, unwavering faith that all of that—

the reason you leave—will be there

when you return.   You stand up, you leave

because you hear the call deep down in the pit of your belly,

you listen when others do not,

you go because others cannot. Over there, gunfire rattles your eardrums.

Over there, you remember your love’s breath on your face, the sight

of your child’s smile like dreams within dreams yearning to become reality.

Godspeed, soldier, and may blessings follow.