The dusty young men move out with combat pack,
the heavy costume of memory disposed long ago,
only the light khaki shirt and shorts of Here and Now.
Vulnerable they leave their bivouac,
armed with a carbine (light), with dread (heavy),
and a flimsy net of silence laid over the stuttering mind.
The heartless young men press coldly to the attack,
they have forgotten us, they remember no Sundays;
only the daily jungle, the immediate marriage of war.
They claim no country, no comrade, they never look back,
their staring eyes refuse our photograph,
are shut to all but the gunsight’s calculation.
Death is the easiest footprint to find in their trackless track,
the dusty young men lying old and blind,
death closing all but their staring hometown eyes.
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