Written in May 2004. Video filmed and published on 2 October 2014
Previously titled: For Our Fathers: A Poem on War . by Alice B. Clagett
Location: Pastorius Reservoir State Wildlife Area, La Plata County, Colorado, among other places

• VIDEO BY ALICE
• SUMMARY OF THE VIDEO
  • “For Our Fathers,” a Poem on War by Alice B. Clagett, May 2004
  • Postlude: Music of Chris Zabriskie and Scenes from Pastorius Reservoir State Wildlife Area, Colorado
• PHOTOS BY ALICE: FROM THE YEAR 2012
• PHOTOS BY ALICE: COLORADO SCENES

Image: ‘Into the Jaws of Death” — US Army troops wade ashore on Omaha Beach on the morning of 6 June 1944. photo by Chief Photographer’s Mate Robert F. Sargent, from Wikimedia Commons, public domain

Dear Ones,

Here is a video by me about a poem I wrote for my father. The Postlude features the music of Chris Zabriskie and scenes from Pastorius Reservoir State Wildlife Area, Colorado. A Summary follows the video …

VIDEO BY ALICE

SUMMARY OF THE VIDEO

This is Alice, Dear Ones.

I have another poem for you, that I wrote years ago for my father, who was in World War II, and saw some difficult action on D-Day, on the beach of Normandy.

Years ago, I was driving to work every day, through the Veterans Administration grounds in Los Angeles, because there were so many beautiful trees, and so much green grass there. No stoplights. It was great. So, one day I stopped, while driving to work, and I wrote this poem about the VA Grounds, and the veterans there. It is a poem for my father …

“For Our Fathers”
A Poem on War by Alice B. Clagett
Soundtrack and Words
May 2004

 

At first light, on the laid-back VA grounds —
. . . . . a land of not so well clipped lawns,
. . . . . and blooming jacaranda trees
. . . . . and blousy buildings, sprouted long before
. . . . . . . . . . the first computer cast its eerie glow
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . upon the shadow that had been our history —

Old men wait for the bus, unmoored
. . . . . from the stale sameness of the working day, and
. . . . . all adrift in that sour sea we call ‘retirement’.

These are the once-sung heroes
. . . . . of the ancient wars,
. . . . . who fought for freedom on unfriendly shores

. . . . . and who, returning, found
. . . . . . . . . . no peace of mind
. . . . . . . . . . in a far too civil union,

. . . . . who wake, each night,
. . . . . . . . . . dreaming atrocities
. . . . . . . . . . dreaming the sloe-eyed death
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . of their personal dreams
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . on the altar of our nation.

Now here they sit,
. . . . . this one nearly blind,
. . . . . and that one racked by gout,
. . . . . another, legless,
. . . . . . . . . . wielding his wheelchair like a Grand Prix pro

Each offering his friends the sweetest gift —
. . . . . a cheerful countenance
. . . . . to brave the gathering storm —

. . . . . and hoping, in his heart, that he may be
. . . . . . . . . . finally on his way home
. . . . . . . . . . to a land of perfect freedom.

Postlude: Music of Chris Zabriskie and Scenes from Pastorius Reservoir State Wildlife Area, Colorado

[The stately instrumental music at the end of the video is “Prelude No. 13” from the album “Preludes” by Chris Zabriskie, CC BY 4.0, and scenes from Pastorius Reservoir in Colorado.]

……………

–from Link: “For Our Fathers,” a poem on war by Alice B. Clagett, written in May 2004. Video filmed and published on 2 October 2014 … https://wp.me/p2Rkym-2c9 ..

Alice B. Clagett

---

Except where otherwise noted, “The Chalice and the Crucible” by Alice B. Clagett … https://chaliceandcrucible.com/ … is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-SA 4.0) … https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ ..

---