For the Coalition Dead

For Sgt. Acklin, and all who follow him

Relinquunt Omnia Servare Rem Publicam

Once I passed through his town,

Stayed in my car the whole time
A fish in an aquarium
I did not even stop for gas

I remembered the song

“Eight more miles to Louisville,”
Grandpa Jones from some happier year
The radio did not oblige.

In the median, there stood a statue

(Facing neither North nor South, for
Kentucky had not known that war)
It must have been Korea or Viet Nam

(There have been so many, who remembers any more)

I saw new buildings going up
I thought, “This town is growing”
A foolish thought as though

I had known this town before

The face of the weathered soldier
Dignified and fearless beneath the
Pigeon’s white tribute to so long a peace.

I passed on to nothern climes, and forgot

The soldier stuck in traffic
But later when war had come again

in a list of names,
I found a native of that place

He, like the other soldier was stuck forever,

Straight as a ramrod,
By accident of alphabet,
He was first in line
In the picture they posted
His young face is smooth,
serene, and does not blink.

He is some former slave’s great grandson, perhaps,

Dead for college money or lack of direction
He must have been a hell of a soldier, though;

Sergeant at 25; but we cannot know him now.

He chose the path, and paid his price.
He and hundreds of his brothers and sisters,
Lettered neatly A to Z.

In a thousand small towns throughout the land,

Church bells ring for the slain and the returned.
When others languish and die to lie beside him,
Their names will be added, the solemn bell tolled.

I wonder if Sgt. Acklin

would have wanted a monument.
But no; for his is a war with no
Monuments, for his age cannot be motionless;
It must rush off too soon, to fight, to die

Though it does not know or even wonder why.

But Louisville slid past me; I want to hope
That other men will remember that young,
Unflinching face, that cannot die alone.

Timothy C. Phillips

March 5th 2004, March 16th 2010