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Yesterday |
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Just yesterday, it seems that I was young
with dreams
of beautiful scenes in a care-free world
where youth has its
flings;
of dating pretty girls
with their hair in curls,
and a smile that greets the dawn
in the Eastern sky
with no thoughts of what it is
to die.
Those days were of sweetest
praise,
not of war-filled days, where men
and boys of WWII
learned how to fight and die
upon some troubled sea,
or in a fighter or bomber in a
foreign sky.
Before the plane crashed into
the deep blue sea,
two thousand miles from
home,
where there were no smiles
from pretty girls
who lavished those exciting
curls;
but that was the yesterday
when skies were baby
blue,
as were "her" eyes so
true!
What happened to change all our
yesterdays
from blue skies to those of dark
storm clouds
where enemy fighters swarmed
like bees
with their stingers out and
flak
so terribly loud!
What would young men give
to live
again in the shadows of
yesterdays of some proud
past;
Where Pretty girls with
their pretty
curls
put the sun to shame?
If an airman survived the
crash,
and lived again to fly once
more, and to drop his bombs
on some enemy
shore,
what then; for his yesterdays
are gone forever
and he cannot remember that
special girl
who tossed her curls in the
sunlight of her
yesterday.
Now WWII is ended and going
home is filled with yesterdays
of another world,
and gone, too, is that
pretty lass who sports
a new hair-do
without a curl,
and by her side holding
hands
Is a handsome man
to whom she has promised
to be true with
her "I Do".
And I am left with memories
of yesterday
of a world gone mad,
where blood so red
in the black sands of the
Pacific Isles,
that have erased the
smiles
of yesterday.
The memories of a different
kind
inhabit my soul and
mind,
in which the "Mares of the Night"
come to neigh and never
go away.
In the darkness of the night
I am left alone to live again
where sights and
sounds of war
override those sights
and sounds
where pretty girls
with pretty curls
once made my young
world
so free and debonair!
Freedom is not free, for scars
outside
are miniscule
compared to those
inside,
where old veterans of
WWII
reside.
We do try to find those
early memories of
the past, where blue
skies
match the color of
a pretty girl's
eyes!
But those memories of which
I speak
have faded and have gone
with the yesterdays,
and tomorrow shall not
bring them back! |
By
C. Douglas Caffey
Copyright 2009
Listed April
4, 2009 |
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Author's Bio:
C. Douglas Caffey is a disabled veteran of WWII. He
served (1944-1946) in the 509th Composite Bomb Group,
58th Wing, Air Photo Unit, 20th Air Force, United States
Army Air Force. It was the 509th who dropped the atomic
bombs on Japan and did the atom bomb tests at Bikini in
the Pacific. A chronic sufferer of PTSD since WWII, Doug
is a former college dean. He started writing poetry
several years ago and though he doesn't claim to be a
poet, he does claim to write from the heart. |
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