Dead Letter

Strange that your death should occur months ago in this world

but not here until now, as announced in all the newspapers,

and that those hearts for whom your name repeated reconstructs,

like an old snapshot, the dear holiday of the past should grieve,

that we should be so badly mistaken, while you have the answer.

Though not in smiles and medals hurrahed home, yet celebrated,

you are the hero. The history books will certainly have to imply

you,

considering in their order our honor, the war, the Pacific campaign.

For some you have already defined an epoch, changing the very

constellation that hung at home in your window, like a reflection.

In that light, we can guess now what the future will bring into

focus:

the usual monument, of course, the speeches-then elegiac

shadow;

for time but diminishes the dead, who somehow remind us too

sharply

of our omissions and failures, and in the end love itself gives up

the ghost, though reluctantly, in the warm, rhetorical arms of the

stranger.

You, however, are no longer vulnerable to our imperfections,

career soldier, having made the honorable, lasting peace

that was always coming to you, like an old friend or a postponed

leave.

And mourning clears no view: even that look to acknowledge

your gift turns away from its mirror, which else might fairly

accuse us.