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Range Finding

The battle rent a cobweb diamond-strung

And cut a flower beside a ground bird's nest.

Before it stained a single human breast.

The stricken flower bent double and so hung.

And still the bird visited her young.

A butterfly its fall had dispossessed

A moment sought in air his flower of rest.

Then lightly stooped to it and fluttering clung.

On the bare upland pasture there had spread

O'ernight 'twixt meullein stalk a wheel of thread

And straining cables wet with silver dew.

A sudden passing bullet shook it dry.

The indwelling spider ran to greet the fly,

But finding nothing, sullenly withdrew.

-- Robert Frost

Bombing Run

After the final shrieking dive,

shock waves diminish in the air

sharp with the stench of burning flesh.

The living venture forth from the ruins,

dusty, half deaf, to gather what remains.

Among the dead, a boy of ten perhaps,

or what is left. A younger girl, unmoving, pale.

They will not know again a mother’s kiss,

the loving hand that smoothes their shining hair,

the small sweet joys of play,

a father’s warm embrace

or stern rebuke over some small misdeed.

The neighbors tug along a wooden cart

with auto wheels and load the disjoint husks.

Two crones bend, their brooms

of bundled branches whisk up

scraps of bloodied cloth, a lock of once fine hair.

Flies buzz. Mothers wail and ululate. Fathers cry and weep.

Back at the base, technicians

swarm the planes. Pilots shuck

their helmets with the laser sights

to swagger, self-congratulent away.

Pop tops snap, foam billows up from icy beers.

In low and angry tones one says,

“Another IED not far away today.

It killed three good Marines.”

He chugs his drink then says,

“Why do these bastards hate us so?”

--John R. Guthrie

The Chickasaw Plum - Volume I - Number 2 - October 2004

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