Poetry, Part Forty-five

The following is one of the longest poems I had written, to date, back in 1978-9. After rereading, it was obviously written after I got to the Academy, especially when it refers to the "high jet trails" because, back in that era of far more transcontinental flights and fewer airport hubs, above Colorado Springs were typically dozens of contrails almost daily. Also, once I got to the Academy, I did a lot of running on the grounds at noon to keep in shape. It seemed a particularly Colorado thing to do. And working out and running at noon seemed a particularly Academy thing to do.

In addition, I wonder if this was written after I was under investigation by the Office of Special Investigations, the OSI. It reads very much like a melancholy summary of my life prior to that. I was still only 29 years old when I wrote this but sound like someone who feels that his life is just about over, at least the life he had known up until then.

Recall

On the screen was footage
spliced together to create scenes
of the war we have not fought.

And the personality
some people keep to themselves.

Sacrificial fatigue.
I leaned my head
against the vibrating enclosure every night.
Saw the face of aging loneliness
unable to find a temptor
to sell my soul to for sleep.

In my youth the high jet trails
were always from military jets--
an isolated few and guarding for me.
But above where I run now,
through the clean skies of Colorado,
civilians outnumber and surpass:
Crossing here,
horizon to horizon in repetitive lengths,
while retracing familiar routes
like missile paths up off the coast.

I run to prolong a youth now having no purpose.
Ran as a child for joy, from fear,
under clearer skies of California.
Never needing to know then:
How would I wander from promise to this place?

If we,
step-by-step,
walk ourselves to where we are,
when did I misstep?
I was not aware that I should leave a trail,
a child unwisely surviving in the woods.

There must have been a time
quite farther back
when I was untroubled.
Loved before I lost the memory,
or lost the woods where memories walk.

Like the trains that nightly thundered through Quantico,
leaving us rattled in our barracks
and following out of sight.

A black and white picture of me on a sled,
as a child.
Now I step in prints in the snow
to get less wet.
I run on dry mud
until I see feet slip aside,
and then I look for drier ground.

Ran in Virginia because I had to,
marching muddy and unconcerned.
Warmth always awaited the evening,
or the next day.
As in Minot where the sun would
warm above us when we ascended,
or when a blizzard lifted.
As step follows step when we run,
and when we stop running.

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