Quantico Generations, before nova

The following is a poem inspired by my weeks at Marine OCS:

No,
none of the destruction yet from this earth,
not even the cloudy bursts of bright heat,
will vanish every remnant.

At least rubble, rubble remains
for Tracers to complain about the uneasy effort.
But the Sun that powered a time of creating
will at last sear molten across the fertile, turning substance,
making a seal of the versatile surface.

When the furnace dwarfs,
leaving a dark, frozen finish,
the hardened thorough mix
shall never again yield up anything former.

The globe may too slowly wander without rest
with only blackened edges of the universe
as a wreath upon the tomb.

And surely it will again lack spokesmen
to say how it once appeared.

My college instructor loved the "rubble, rubble" duplication.  I realized that this was not originally intended, so it must have been an unconscious event, my having typed the word twice.  But I liked it, too, so I have left it that way.

I suppose I was most saddened when I left Marine OCS that I was disappointing Gunny Williams.  He taught all of us so much, but me perhaps the most.  As I said, I would return for the graduation.  I would also fly back on a non-stop from Dulles with 2nd Lt. Darwin Newlin.  I would later chat with 2nd Lt. Mullens when he was stationed at Camp Pendleton.  And I have photographs of the time that 2nd Lt. Dennis Zito, stationed at 29 Palms, visited us in South Gate, CA, and we all drove down to San Diego in my Mustang.  I would remain friends with Den and Beth Zito into the 80's, as well as become friends with his brother Dave Zito, who was in the Air Force and stationed at Edwards AFB after I had returned from Air Force OCS.

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