Night Hawke

Grudge Harbor Sunday luck maybe it wasn't like Christmas the beach still warm December's chill half a planet past Tuesday Sam was his uncle as he was mine      he grinned nervous through antique lips                leaning forward he continued the chronicle never told from the refuge of a slatted chair unfolded into the June sun he didn't harbor any grudge           he said Many nephews had asked    before many years having passed since that day when the morning sun had brought the hail of fire I thought he must have seen it staring off into thin air the hum of cicadas his only trumpets of glory Many had asked but now he couldn't eat pie      crusty flaky fresh strawberries with cream, baby food wretched baby food cream corn maybe water won't even go down when his craw clamped Pearl was quiet Sunday morning silence and a good time to crap he laughed the war had caught him with his pants down he was just a kid then and still he could hear a gnat fart a half a mile away and the buzz reverb rattling from the tin roof of the latrine broke the peace he didn't know why it was just different somehow interesting the guns were kept standing on the beach I didn't fully comprehend why but it seemed they kept them propped up against each other like poles like a teepee or something he coughed and I let my mind drift as he described it and the tape recorder gave me false security I failed to realize it was just the din of the cicada's heard by the built-in microphone I was just a kid then and studying journalism never told this story until now not sure why unless it's because pie is off my menu and all I want these days is a little peace but he ran from the cabana to the beach empty except for the guns the shadows in the sky and the sound didn't sound like any of Sam's aircraft he didn't remember maybe the first shell fell down spiral the gravity of a whistle into epidemic bangs metal and flesh frying breakfast not even on the table yet maybe or the alarms came first the swarm of soldiers staining the white sand with footfalls thundering bombs hailing down into guns the big ones Missouri burning He had his gun already when the SEE-OH ordered everybody to get their guns almost everybody already had a gun the SEE-OH wanted them to fall in line and march up to the hills on the highway and they double timed until the company halted and the SEE-OH some skinny West Point reject with a butter bar squeaky voiced punk in fatigues maybe he was still hungover from Saturday nite maybe but he ordered them into the shrubs the Hawaiian bushes there on the side of the road to hide, to hold their fire but there was too much fire in the water the mayhem was stoning my uncle and maybe he just couldn't hear orders over bombs the planes the guns the pathos of men boys dying on a Sunday morning on the beach in the water that's what he told the officers the ones sitting in judgement of his trial the court martial the one ordered by the skinny squeaky lieutenant who was pissed off because my uncle had the nerve to disobey an order and shot a jap plane flying low he said they were so low he thought if he'd just stood up up there in the hills he could have touched a wheel on one of the planes flying over like locusts the cicadas hummed as we listened two of his other nephews one of them my uncle the other my dad my great uncle sat there staring off his wife waddling out of the kitchen screen door springing back slammed the strawberry pie fresh and sliced on serving plates she was carrying out for us but it didn't seem right for us to eat it when he couldn't have any but I'd come 1200 miles and all I'd ever heard was Aunt Mava's pie strawberry was just about mana from heaven and I'd never even had the chance to meet these people before and he'd never told this story to my dad or his brother or anybody but they'd known somewhat about it and he just wouldn't talk about the war but I'd only just met him and it didn't seem right to eat pie The military court then called the SEE-OH to the stand to testify he told them all about how my uncle fired a shot my uncle looked up around at his nephews and said he wasn't the only one somebody else down line fired about the same time he did and a jap plane went down so he never really knew if it was his bullet or not but he'd always felt like it was The officers stopped the prosecutor then they asked the SEE-OH how many men were in the company up there in the hills hiding he gave them the number probably the correct one because he seemed like the by the book wonk type then they asked him if all the men had guns and the wonky wimp said yes and they asked him if they all had ammo and the limp prick said yes one of the officers maybe some general I don't know stood up and went face to face with the wimp chewed on his cigar and sprayed spit all over him as he cursed in his face echoing back how many guns and how many rounds were up there in the hills hiding just inches away from the enemy swarming overhead and asked him why? Why did you order your men to hold their fire while the harbor burned? The wimp swallowed his throat and squeaked out some bullshit about protocol and not revealing positions and procedures and such things as that And let's say it was a General just for the sake of the story had my tape turned out I'd know today but all I have to work from is my head and it's been a long time since 1979 Sam's General turned red holding the prosecutor back from the stand with his free hand while he grasped the SEE-OH by his collar and began to rant If the SEE-OH could have have just seen oh how many men wouldn't have died that day because he had enough guns enough rounds in position to have seriously changed the outcome of that December Sunday if he'd only just not been too shitless to reveal his position My uncle didn't hold a grudge against Sam but Sam, Sam grudged the SEE-OH but was always too shy to tell it to the rags *********************************************************** Ghosts of Shilo Specter of dust and blood orchards where that house of peace estranged this grandfather from that one life flows by muddy as the Tennessee River bearing trespassers traitor to its homeland namesake kin that water thickened with blood A quarrel with lines drawn tight across honeycomb fenced neighbors feuding over colors black white, blue gray red blood bled the pond the fields of freedom to some they buried the bodies seeds of perennial strife Weeds to a flag flown of spite; to Bloods or Cripps colors coloured words rage in the wake of Shiloh's ghosts the folly of spilled blood that war's only victor is in the end odium propagated progeny colored with bigotry Through silver maple leaves blowing into black sky cannons' shadows graze the grass stained mist of rage in Aprils pastel wraith so we may remember always that which we should forget

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