Editor’s Note – As has become tradition for the Mount Vernon-Lisbon Sun, we are publishing the poem written by Mount Vernon’s poet laureate at the Memorial Day service. The poet laureate position is underwritten by the Mount Vernon Area Arts Council.

Once A Child

A grieving father once told me,

“You cannot bury a soldier.”

I asked this man what he meant,

and he said,

Every soldier was once a child,

and every child a brother, sister,

friend. It is we who place in these once-

children’s hands the power

of our god’s righteous wrath,

we who rest on their shoulders

our own hopes for justice.

Every one of these once-children we have sent

to struggle, to strengthen, to strike, to sustain.

We who must honor that child’s precise

and obedient duty.

We do not bury a soldier,

because in such causes these once-children

take up, even a body

could not lie dormant.

We bury instead a friend, a lover,

a child. A soldier’s memory lives

in blood, our brother’s rests in stone.

Thank you.

Nathan Countryman | Staff photo

MV Memorial Day 7 –