The Rose Warrior
In my old country family, my foster father’s brothers and sisters
were variously displaced, forced conscripts, imprisoned in labor camps
and fled as refugees during the Second World War in Eastern Europe. They
were force-marched away from their land in their tiny farm village, and
their small number of hectares never restored. As my father found them
stunned and wandering across Europe, one by one he brought them to
America. My childhood home overflowed with haunted refugees who struggled
so hard to come back to life. There is a story told in our family about
“the rose warrior,” who in the midst of battle rage, suddenly turns into
a rose-bowered soul. The scent of roses over the battlefield becomes
greater than the scent of blood. This causes him to remember his truest
self, and thus to sheath his sword and to be taken to kill no more. There
are so many struggling toward this shore in the modern world; we have
believed that many souls can make it.
I worked at the VA as an aide and I saw them come back from hell.
Hell! Hell was still smoking inside them: Front line men, artillery,
tank and tail, helicopter, hand to hand, med evac, nurses, chaplains,
photographers. People wanted “war stories,” from them, to somehow
share a suck at what they thought of as the heroic tit. They wanted
everyone to say they were OK and looking forward to settling down
with a nice girl or boy somewhere near trees and water. But the
soldiers’ eyes said, Still at Inchon, Still at the Ardennes
Still at the Tet Still in Cambodia. Forever. The real
eye-witness reports ran every night on the dream newsreels. There,
in their own beds, the men and women dreamt Honor and Horror, were
dressed as innocent children, who played time and again with the
unspent money of shells and mines so deadly pretty. And the
sexual luster of war continued to swell the hearts of so many who
never saw war up close. At the VA, the soldiers walked the halls
wearing their crowns of thorns made of missiles and unspeakable
memories on fire.
Forever. And anyone who had a heart left hanging by even one hinge
wondered, Isn’t there such a thing as patriotic anger? Is it not
true that there is such a thing as patriotic sadness and sorrow?
What about patriotic resistance? Can there be patriotic regret?
And, oh by the way, when did patriotic reluctance to kill change
from a holy thing to a hated one? And what does war shatter besides
bone? And how can secret regret deserve so much public praise?
How can the maiming of human life that all say is so precious, be
given so much remembrance, as though it is hard-sought treasure
instead of so unbearably tragic? How can the arms, the heads, the legs
of the dead, be more valued than those who still stand with
patriotic valor shining, with eyes that say: Still walking from
Bataan Still in Saigon Still in Seoul Still deployed into cold
waters under hundred pound packs and struggling toward shore.
Forever.
-- Clarissa Pinkola Estés Rocky Mountains
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Praying for Rain in the Southwest
Liquidate your assets, Lord. Were suffering here from
drought. Gird up your loins, grab your pitcher, and pour the water
out
On field, on plain, on city and town Let the prayed-for rains
come streaming down
Over highway, pathway, road and street Rushing in
torrents to ocean meet
And become one with that endless sea As I am
in you and you in me.
-- Judith Robbins Whitefield,
Maine
Hints
Morning begins with a sip And sweet, pink-colored lips
Awake the cold, reluctant lake.
Wondering whether a leap Or a dance
into the air Could better fascinate a mate A gull ponders on the
reef, Looks down and contemplates The lightly pulsating waves.
Up
for a treat I watch and wait.
-- Fr. Conrado Beloso Fernie,
British Columbia
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