One Poem by Rick Hartwell

 

Inevitable Judas

Graham Greene,

The Power and the Glory

 

Some names I remember and

recite them among those gone,

while there are legions of others

unknown, but mused on tenaciously:

poetry written to honour the dead

on both sides of the American War.

 

Prayers on Dam Gio by family

with no idea where ancestors fell;

a diaspora of unnamed dead still

searching for a peaceful sanctuary;

while we celebrate with almost sixty

thousand poems written on The Wall.

 

I still search for the inevitable Judas,

a villain by whom we were betrayed,

for there is no honour in a peace brokered

by lies, blood, deceit, chemicals, and bombs:

after decades I still labour under a deluded

need for there to be some intended purpose.

Rick Hartwell is a retired middle school teacher (remember the hormonally-challenged?) living in Southern California with his wife of forty-nine years, Sally (upon whom he is emotionally, physically, and spiritually dependent), two grown children, two granddaughters, and fifteen cats! Don’t ask. Like the Transcendentalists and William Blake, he believes that the instant contains eternity.