04-20-2019, 09:20 AM
Fit for Heroes
What would a fitting home for heroes be?
No marble mausoleum, shrine to those
who died in war, nor massive statues of
flag-waving Amazons who never were–
and not a temple’s perfect carpentry
of pilings, floating on an inland sea.
Yes, housing for survivors and their loves–
but not grim blocks of council tenements,
brick flats too like burnt ruins they had fought
among, each corner threatening surprise
of bullet, hand-grenade, or bayonet.
Yet almost worse, these towers of cement
which might seem homey, bunker-like, secure,
to those who never spent a day in one.
Most fitting, execrated though its like
has come to be for counter-culturals,
is Levittown - its bungalows and lawns
rejecting war’s disorder and decay.
No towers or shell-craters here: man’s eye
halts at each quarter-acre’s picket fence–
his thousand-yard stare weakens, and at last
releases into smiles of peace he’s earned.
What would a fitting home for heroes be?
No marble mausoleum, shrine to those
who died in war, nor massive statues of
flag-waving Amazons who never were–
and not a temple’s perfect carpentry
of pilings, floating on an inland sea.
Yes, housing for survivors and their loves–
but not grim blocks of council tenements,
brick flats too like burnt ruins they had fought
among, each corner threatening surprise
of bullet, hand-grenade, or bayonet.
Yet almost worse, these towers of cement
which might seem homey, bunker-like, secure,
to those who never spent a day in one.
Most fitting, execrated though its like
has come to be for counter-culturals,
is Levittown - its bungalows and lawns
rejecting war’s disorder and decay.
No towers or shell-craters here: man’s eye
halts at each quarter-acre’s picket fence–
his thousand-yard stare weakens, and at last
releases into smiles of peace he’s earned.
Non-practicing atheist