Poem: Do The Hard Work

Stone Riley

-Artist’s Website-

Shouldn’t there be snow? It’s February in the outlying reaches of the Alps in southern Germany. We are out on the porch of a tavern that clings to a steep valley’s green grassy wall, nursing mugs of beer in the rising twilight.

We are the tavern’s only customers. We scarcely speak and scarcely make a sound for we are keeping secrets, each their own.

I go lean on a rail to watch the darkness move. It’s coming toward me, rising from the valley’s shadows far below. The air is still and clear and it’s not even really cold.

We are five men. Our little truck is parked up by the road. It’s 1971 and we are U.S. Army soldiers, stationed in this country on a Cold War stalemate line instead of being sent to fight in Viet Nam.

The old sergeant, commander of our little journey for this evening, he who kindly halted here and even bought the beer, comes to lean against the railing beside me. The young corporal who is driving also comes and sits down on a bench beside and slowly takes a sip.

The old sergeant, this professional soldier, to show he’s talking to me, looks out there where I am looking. And he breaks the silence: “I admire what you’re doing.”

I’ve just done thirty days in army jail for doing war resistance work. He and his corporal are transporting me and two other malefactors also just released back to our regular duties. He has now given me military information about morale.

He has spoken very softly.

Surprised, I look into his face then look away. I whisper thanks. But then I wonder what this means that I should do.

And then, down there below, laboring to rise out of the rising night, low to the grassy ground and laboring up this hillside, I see a crow at wing.