Richard D. Preston

SHORT TIMER’S STICK

Boiling point
212 degrees
Hot tropical raindrops
Dripping acid trees

Lurking in the bush
Just beyond the clearing
Death deals aces and eights
For those hard of believing

The day takes the breath
From steaming round wounds
And the cries of the unaware
Pierce the sky like the howling of wolves

One has to believe
In the jungles of pain
Where a man can enter the green
And never leave the same

Fate plays no favorites
And the enemy has a mind to kill
The squeeze of a trigger
Another beating heart stills

They say fear is just pain
Trying to escape
But losing the respect of vigilance
Equals a coffin flag draped

And the cautious man lives on
Though inside he suffers the loss
And the freedom he enjoys
Dims as he counts the great cost

Memories linger hauntingly
Yesterdays are as vivid as today
Three hundred sixty five notches on a stick,
Reveal his calendar of lifelong, Memorial days