Rose - In Honor of Vietnam Veterans

In my Bible I've kept pressed the rose

You found just before your eyes closed.

I wish that I could just unsee

The way your eyes spoke to me

While in your chest lay three blows.

How could I ever make a fresh start

While guilt stabs my broken heart?

For you blended in so well,

I might as well be in Hell.

To this day the sweetest things are so tart.

Why do I live while you are dead?

Somehow I ended up here instead

Standing above your burial site,

Holding back tears with all my might.

"Killed in battle," the preacher had said.

Don't they deserve to know what's true?

That you were killed by your own crew

I cannot gather words to say

Memories of that gruesome day

Your face surrounded with bamboo.

How do I live one day at a time

With your face plastered in my mind?

Left of you is just a rose,

The only witness that truly knows.

But in a war, not a thing is a crime.

You told me that without its thorns,

The rose proved what Vietnam had sworn.

That all beauty would go up in smoke,

Surrounding innocence in a burning cloak,

Leaving all life wilting and torn.

Dear God, please explain what's happened to me.

My life is not how it used to be.

I'm estranged and weak and full of hate,

No more with life will I debate.

Won't you greet me, Sergeant G?