A Dream Took Pity On Us, Again
and I woke up from the deep
place to a stilled room.
My husband is still lying there,
finally quiet now—no thrashing,
no starts, no shouting someone’s
name to duck or run, or some
other command as if he was
still in the midst of the War--
as if someone was climbing
over our pillow,
the old blue blanket on the bed;
was stepping around
the toothbrushes on the sink;
was rummaging through
the soap dish en route to exit
our half-opened bathroom window.
Wherever Hell is, my husband’s
been there, front and center,
lined-up, saluting.
But I look at him now:
his face relaxed, steady breath--
the nightmare once again played out
in the neatly-tucked-and-quartered
confine of our double bed.
by Contributing Poet Marilyn Johnston Copyright © 20204
VWP 2024 First published in War Stories 2015, Blue Skirt Productions LLC.
July Fourth
He can’t let go of the image:
rocket and artillery rounds lighting up the sky
overhead, blasts reflecting off Thu Bon River;
the incessant rattling of earth, and at dawn,
the hunks of shrapnel that shredded his tent walls,
missing his body by inches.
He figured he’d survived this long,
and, Hell, wouldn’t it be downright cruel
to take him now, after nineteen months
in ‘Nam and just hours before
his discharge, a plane taking him
far away from Da Nang.
He says it didn’t take long to become
a fatalist—to believe the only thing separating
those who lived and those who died was luck--
particularly during days on jungle patrol
in 120-degree heat.
Sweat rolling down like hate.
But God knows, he still can’t shake it.
Each summer for the past thirty-two years,
he tells me that story as we sit on the grassy
Willamette River bank—then silently wait
for the first boom, the first blast,
the lights brightening up
the night sky.
by Contributing Poet Marilyn Johnston Copyright © 2024
VWP 2024 First published in Red Dust Rising, The Habit of Rainy Nights Press, 2004.
Returning
It is spring and the days less humid
than he remembered. But that was
fifty-four years ago at Firebase Bronco,
only yards away from this dust-laden
street of Duc Pho, its familiar
nuoc mam scent in the air.
He watches, waits to see
if harsh looks greet him
or our family--
from the vendor who approaches, a wooden bar
across her shoulders, deep buckets suspended
on each end as she sells her wares;
from the men and women in the rice paddies,
with their cone-shaped hats, their bare feet,
as they pull and they plant;
from the elderly woman at the market stand,
teeth blackened from betel nuts, who sells
steaming bowls of pho we eat greedily--
but there is nothing, no one
whose eyes speak anything
but welcome.
The children run across the levee, then turn,
like the flock of birds over the rice paddy,
as they rise and they land,
the children beside him now,
their small hands all vying to touch his shoulders
for the photo I’ll take--
the one that will show him standing straight, smiling.
And they seem to be lifting him
impossibly far.
by Contributing Poet Marilyn Johnston Copyright © 2024
VWP 2024 First published in Speaking Peace, Save the Salem Peace Mosaic, 2023.
and I woke up from the deep
place to a stilled room.
My husband is still lying there,
finally quiet now—no thrashing,
no starts, no shouting someone’s
name to duck or run, or some
other command as if he was
still in the midst of the War--
as if someone was climbing
over our pillow,
the old blue blanket on the bed;
was stepping around
the toothbrushes on the sink;
was rummaging through
the soap dish en route to exit
our half-opened bathroom window.
Wherever Hell is, my husband’s
been there, front and center,
lined-up, saluting.
But I look at him now:
his face relaxed, steady breath--
the nightmare once again played out
in the neatly-tucked-and-quartered
confine of our double bed.
by Contributing Poet Marilyn Johnston Copyright © 20204
VWP 2024 First published in War Stories 2015, Blue Skirt Productions LLC.
July Fourth
He can’t let go of the image:
rocket and artillery rounds lighting up the sky
overhead, blasts reflecting off Thu Bon River;
the incessant rattling of earth, and at dawn,
the hunks of shrapnel that shredded his tent walls,
missing his body by inches.
He figured he’d survived this long,
and, Hell, wouldn’t it be downright cruel
to take him now, after nineteen months
in ‘Nam and just hours before
his discharge, a plane taking him
far away from Da Nang.
He says it didn’t take long to become
a fatalist—to believe the only thing separating
those who lived and those who died was luck--
particularly during days on jungle patrol
in 120-degree heat.
Sweat rolling down like hate.
But God knows, he still can’t shake it.
Each summer for the past thirty-two years,
he tells me that story as we sit on the grassy
Willamette River bank—then silently wait
for the first boom, the first blast,
the lights brightening up
the night sky.
by Contributing Poet Marilyn Johnston Copyright © 2024
VWP 2024 First published in Red Dust Rising, The Habit of Rainy Nights Press, 2004.
Returning
It is spring and the days less humid
than he remembered. But that was
fifty-four years ago at Firebase Bronco,
only yards away from this dust-laden
street of Duc Pho, its familiar
nuoc mam scent in the air.
He watches, waits to see
if harsh looks greet him
or our family--
from the vendor who approaches, a wooden bar
across her shoulders, deep buckets suspended
on each end as she sells her wares;
from the men and women in the rice paddies,
with their cone-shaped hats, their bare feet,
as they pull and they plant;
from the elderly woman at the market stand,
teeth blackened from betel nuts, who sells
steaming bowls of pho we eat greedily--
but there is nothing, no one
whose eyes speak anything
but welcome.
The children run across the levee, then turn,
like the flock of birds over the rice paddy,
as they rise and they land,
the children beside him now,
their small hands all vying to touch his shoulders
for the photo I’ll take--
the one that will show him standing straight, smiling.
And they seem to be lifting him
impossibly far.
by Contributing Poet Marilyn Johnston Copyright © 2024
VWP 2024 First published in Speaking Peace, Save the Salem Peace Mosaic, 2023.
Bio: Marilyn Johnston is an Oregon writer and filmmaker. She received a fellowship from Oregon Literary Arts and won the Donna J. Stone National Literary Award for Poetry, as well as a Robert Penn Warren writing competition award. Poems from her chapbook, Red Dust Rising (2004, The Habit of Rainy Nights Press) and her full collection, Before Igniting (2020, Rippling Brook Press) have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, among others. She serves as a creative writing instructor in the Artists in the Schools Program and has conducted writing workshops across the U.S. and in Spain.
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