IN THE HOT KANSAS WIND

You might remember in "Never Pay More Than the Legal Price" that I mentioned some of my memories from the WWII era. Here is one more:

IN THE HOT KANSAS WIND

~

You will forget, we were told, if we put his pictures away.

I guess that could be so.

But today, as his face peers from a frame

So young, so long ago,

I remember how brave he seemed jumping over sparklers,

Things like that.

And then the war came and he went away.

We never saw him again.

~

Gramma and Mama and Aunt Wilma changed,

They didn't laugh as much any more.

Grampa and Daddy spoke softly, strange words

Like tail-gunner...death...Guam...

Oh, we still had homemade ice cream

On hot summer nights,

We still caught June bugs, trapped fireflies,

Suffered chigger bites...

But even now, Mama and Aunt Wilma visit him

In that lonely little cemetery with pine trees all around

And tall grass, billowing in the hot Kansas wind.

~~~

Copyright (c) Beverly J. Caligaris 1996,2009 All rights reserved

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Since that writing Gramma, Grampa and Aunt Wilma have passed. Mama sits in a wheel chair in the nursing home staring out the window. And Daddy walks from his assisted living apartment and sits in the room with her all day...every day...