WHY?

I’ve asked the question,

A thousand times or more,

What more could I have done?

As I really didn’t understand

What changed?

What had changed this man?

This man that I first married.

 

Ever a handsome fella;

Dressed in khaki cloth,

Fresh faced,

Gentle, caring,

Considerate loving husband,

Before going off

To that stinken foreign war,

Off to an uncertainty.

 

But in the return of my warrior;

With loving arms a beckoning,

For him

Discharged and released;

Into this brand-new horizon,

Subtle changes at first unnoticed,

In having my man returned,

Expecting a life of wedded bliss,

And endless joy of peace.

 

 

However I the wife,

Began to have this battle

Of fighting an unknown war,

Where bouts of anger came and went,

With Sulkiness,

Depression,

And suspicions easily aroused,

Periods of unexplained darkness

Of something bottled within

Easily the order of the day.

 

His children who knew naught

Of happenings abound,

From a father who found

Everyday faults so many

Drove a wedge

Between parenthood

And the siblings of his groin

Forcing them out into a world

Of the unexpected

Out there

Into a misunderstanding world of unknown.

 

As loyal wife of long ago,

Taken vows “till death us do part”

Now I suffer in total silence,

Tormented by the grief,

Sometimes in disbelief,

This deep-seated anger,

Which smoldered

Like an un-erupted overdue volcano,

Deep inside the belly,

Every day became like torture

In trying to understand,

What really changed my man?

 

As I now do sit,

On this carpet

Of lush green grass,

A lonely tear rolls down

Head bowed

In deep respect,

For me now a reality,

He has left the place

Truly gone forever,

Off to his lastingly resting place

And for this old soldier boy

‘Tis for him a much better rest

Than all the confusion of his mind.

​

I gaze!

I fix my eyes on his bronze plaque

His name,

Rank and serial number inscribed,

An azalea grows in a terracotta pot,

Marking the spot

Where they lowered the casket,

Three days after that fateful day,

The day they buried my man.

 

I being the widow,

The mother,

And once his wife

Must now have inner strength,

“O God I wish I had more,

But why Lord oh why!

When he returned,

I still ask the question

What did change?

My lover,

My husband,

My man!

 

Probably for me this is my greatest achievement as a poet and writer of verse,

for this piece was published in the States in a Veteran’s magazine.

This piece is for all those for the wives who did not understand

what was wrong with their man when they came home from war.