See the Soldiers

A poem for Veterans Day

A U.S Marine at a memorial service for 31 fallen U.S. servicemen at Camp Korean Village, near Rutbah, western Iraq on Feb. 2, 2005. (Anja Nedringhaus / AP file)

See the Soldiers 

See the soldiers. Night may be with them. 
The shrines, the graves, the melting shores— 

all eclipse their laughter, their chores.
But daylight is surely with them, too.

The sun that thaws their frozen limbs,
shines on their woolen backs, shines

through the penumbra, too, pulsing
there, in darkened air, like the wrist

of that dying boy—music we couldn’t
have heard but still we recognize.

See the soldiers. Night may be with them. 
The shrines, the graves, the melting shores— 

all eclipse their laughter, their chores.
But daylight is surely with them, too . . .