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I sat beneath a Veteran-oak,
In awe of His
strength...
Here was a solid spirit!
Sympathy you get
from Willow,
But stiff upper-lip from old soldiers,
With forged bark ...
His limbs flexed, cut, rippled against
the wind...
No chinks in this warrior-wood...
"Divide and
Conquer!"
Then I thought of my Father...
A cook at
the end of the war...The Big One!
You know the One I
mean, as if there are small ones...
When the commanders were
through eating
He was instructed to toss the leftovers
From the belch of plates...
Trashcans were in the alley,
The steel that seems intrinsic to battles
In one form or
another...
The hungry German children
Would sneak pass
the guards
And line-up;
My father would sneak pass his
superiors
And his honor
To dispense carefully wrapped
scraps...
Well, soon the line was out into the street
As
my father was compelled to seek food
From wherever he
could steal, beg or barter
To procure...This brought
attention...the cat-out-of-the-bag,
And all hell down on my
father,
As the captain screamed: Gus, these are the enemy
(the children in the alley),
What in God's Name are you
doing?
He was forced to stop...no court-martial though...
I looked up again at the old oak,
Through the snarled
branches
Deep into the staunch soldier,
Where I spied
a nest
In a small, compact fork...
Having a canopy of
extra leaves
For shade and shelter from the wind...
I
smiled...hum...
His bark reddened, but like my father, no
apology from this weathered soldier...
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