CHRISTINA-MARIE UMSCHEID
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A LETTER HOME
One tattered paper
is a partial history
Lost memories
have meaning.
Truth is hidden between lines.
A name has been worn by heat.
Soldiers bend to pick it up
and are shot one by one.
But each one tries to break
the spell or code before their breath stops.
Listen where silence is echoed
in red stained uniforms.
Too many deaths.
Too much killing.
Sky absorbs smoke
and sends clouds of pouring rain.
Each breath whispers a prayer
as their ghosts lift in an angel’s arms.
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THE DUNLAP
President Franklin D. Roosevelt
was leading America to war.
Pearl Harbor, full of boats,
had the Dunlap
getting ready to leave,
five Sullivan brothers, soldiers,
from Waterloo, Iowa were in
Guadalcanal on the cruiser Juneau.
Bombs exploded.
The boat was taking on water.
No time to jump
soon all was lost.
The President said,
'No more brothers on the same ship."
Many others fought in the Pacific
And made it through the Carolinas and Iwa Jima.
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WAR MOTHER
Five babies. . .
She said she had five babies alone.
Her husband went into thE US army
leaving her alone with little ones.
In Flint at that time
there was no indoor plumbing.
No toilet, no sink, no tub.,
Her voice still carried anger.
The army sent him back after six months
Because he had so many children to care for,.
sent him back at Christmas!
He had worked with machines
while she carried their young
one by one to the outhouse and pump.
He said, “Let’s go to Petoskey”
just quitting from his job. And left!
Sometime later, she remarried.
and stayed North..
Feelings make lines
mapping her life on her face.
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WAR
Dead bones filled with bullets
rest over earth.
We help each other forget.
Bodies whisper, remember.
Music scratches
in songs of victory
and anthems.
Bodies whisper, remember.
Children are orphan s
or die in bombs.
No tears erase.
Bodies whisper, remember.
Holocausts repeat in severed limbs,
maimed and kept alive
burdened victims hear
bodies whisper, remember