by Becky Harblin
My great-grandfather,
the man who rescued
his nearly orphaned grandsons,
was waiting to die with cancer.
And my father hot on a runway
in Egypt hoping his grandfather
would live one more year
until,
just until
World War II
was over.
The waiting and the living
didn’t happen in good order.
My father’s brothers,
one shell shocked,
one purple heart-awarded,
all far away
in the heat and burning
when their beloved
patriarch died.
How is it...
how is it I ask of you,
and yours,
can we endure this war
and that war,
and the ones that will come again?
Becky Harblin works as a sculptor and Wellness Arts Practitioner. She lives on a small farm in upstate New York with a few sheep, and an old newfoundland dog. The daily haiku she writes can be found on Her poems have been published in various places including New Verse News.
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