A little girl
running across
the parking lot
her eyes all aglow,
beautiful long hair
streaming behind her.
"Daddy! Daddy!"
He takes her in his arms,
'his lovely wife, smiling, radiant
Oh, the lovelight in her eyes!
Commander of
an aircraft carrier
fighting the Japanese
in the Pacific,
a dedicated officer,
his fighter plane
the only thing
between his ship
with hundreds of men aboard
and a giant kamikaze
flying bomb.
His last words on his radio,
not talking to his crew
but to his wife
so many thousands of miles away
"O Mary, there's a lot of lives
at stake here!
I've gotta do this, Mary,
I've got to!"
His plane and the kamikaze,
a ball of fire
lighting the sky!
Ah! These honored dead
of whom the world is not worthy,
least of all this poor poet.