Veteran

The sun had tanned his face into taut lines.

His head had no memory of its hair.
His shirt still clung to its fading pattern.

Though he seemed to trudge the ruts of habit,

He liked the taste of the land on his tongue,

What a farm looked like, smelled like, sounded like.

He knew the weight, colours, feel of the day.
His fork prongs scribbled sentences of hay.

He’d put men butchered near a shallow stream -

By scared Balubas - in makeshift coffins.

But he never oversaid his Congo time.

He did arduous things his way with ease.

He spoke lightly of things that happen when

The hard hell on earth takes its daily turn:

The pain you can do nothing to prevent;

The heart’s lonely spasm of helpless dying.

He knew God leaves you in the wood to die,

Because God does not answer for the world.

He spent hours at abstract painting - it freed

His gaze from distorted humanity.

The bones of our dead paled at his nightmares.

But he watched horses with a child’s wonder.

As he lightly tapped his pipe on the gate,

His day clicked its end like a closing box.