NAVAJO CODE TALKER NOW AT REST

by Lavinia Kumar

The New York Times, October 20, 2024

armament ……animal ………...Navajo animal name

bomber……….buzzard ……….jay-sho

fighter plane…hummingbird …da-he-tih-hi

battleship ……whale …………lo-tso

destroyer……..shark…………..ca-lo.

 

Navajo John Kinsel lived 107 years,

decades since he was Code Talker

the Navajo Code unbreakable, critical 

to Iwo Jima Marine victory.

 

He returned, his wound healing—

to his grandfather who’d happy-cried,

to a welcome ceremony—

returned to the Navajo Nation—

received Purple Heart after 43 years,

Congressional Medal 12 years later.

 

his memory to inspire generations

his spirit resting in peace.

Lavinia Kumar’s latest book is a reprinting of her short book Beauty. Salon. Art. 

STYMIED

by George Held

T***p wears mask in public for 1st time. The president told reporters, “I've never been against masks,” before departing the White House for Walter Reed Medical Center. Credit: Patrick Semansky/AP via ABC News, July 12, 2020

That is no planet for old men, or young –
the Earth contaminated by a virus
so deadly that in one great city
one in three hundred has become

infected and in a tiny Arkansas town
one in nineteen, and all the while
the most powerful man on Earth
wears no mask, except at Walter Reed.

Maybe a mask offers no more protection
than a rubber with a hole in it
but still, the President might wear one
at least to show concern for prophylaxis;

so those who mask up to walk to the post
office must encounter strapping young women
and men whose aplomb, arrogance, or disregard
for more vulnerable citizens

lends even a commonplace sortie
a risk like charging a machinegun
nest on Iwo Jima. But most old folks know
their time is up and dying from the virus

can be more efficient than falling victim
to a malignancy. An aged human
is but a decrepit thing, unlikely to remain
a golden bird upon a golden bough,

much less to sing to a careless emperor…

George Held, a longtime contributor to TheNewVerse.News, is sheltering in Eastern Long Island.