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One Man's Dream
by Nancy L. Meek ©2002 The soldier stands a lonely watch as the winds flow softly around him the war falling somehow silent behind him its angry din rustling the pages of time His gun is at-the-ready, still he dreams as the leaves turn over slowly in his mind scenes from the past...the bitter sorrows his imagined tomorrows at this story's end A quiet glen invades his brain with no remorse with a moonlit river on a warm summer's eve days filled with laughter...bright, pure and clean devoid of the horrors his eyes have seen With no reprieve, the images flow ethereal constant reminders of the way life used to be unmarred by war's unsanctified demolition destroying any hope of one man's dream Can he ever go back to the beginning of time rip the pages from the splines of his war's tome return home the man his family used to know before his dreams were dashed against the shore The smell of napalm leeches through the trees embeds into his nostrils the rancid odor of war the finger of fate scribing his final hoary ending its bloody nail silent, deadly; and inside he screams Suffer the little children for the sins of the fathers perpetuating the same old-yet-new acts of yore ever-fighting...freshly-dying for a brighter tomorrow with no way in sight to stop the circle of sorrow Standing on the summit, eons pass before his eyes former missions dig their teeth into his history while monolithic conundrums refuse to subside with each battle climax only agitating the mystery What of tomorrow?...he wonders. Will he survive? Will duty and honor be enough to withstand the day this hour...this minute...this second...or will he die watching his dream rush the blazing sun far away Will his family know him when and if he returns? What gifts of war will he bring his unborn children? Can he lift the pieces of his life from the battle floor put them back together and continue on as before? Or will he forever be changed, standing a lone watch waiting, praying for the author to create a new page erase the painful leaves burning in his soul today return his dream mankind so savagely stole away As the hot winds of war swirl, crouching, close in as peace and freedom vanish right in front of him the Sun in Heaven, like Hell burning, now just a star leaves him parched, thirsting still for mirages afar
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