A Reservist Who Taught
Melville,
Killed on River Patrol on the Tigris
Pinwheels and tiny flags
bloom all along your hillside;
patina smeared bronze plaques
revel in cut flowers and thick
squares of crayola and paints.
You only stood and stared,
they said, as the incoming
rocket propelled grenade
snaked from a child's shoulder
over green, rippling silence.
Was it what Ishamel saw;
a cobra of tarred hemp leap
and soar, streak and smoke
as the whale dove, rushing
to Creation's molten core?
Lilliputian banners are blown
down and stars of tinted foil spin
with an insistence beyond Bible,
Torah or Qur'an, bearing us down,
sailors lashed atop the Leviathan.