STONE SEAS
that hold your ship
to its course dead
into the gunfire
ahead, a course
charted long before
on stone paper, with
a stone channel
for the ship to go
into battle with its
own stone Operation
Order, there is no
changing the sea
and little chance
of changing the Order
and you, what are you
but stone too, your
binoculars clasped
in your tight hands
while the bright flowers
of war engrave
the skies above you.
—from Rattle #13, Summer 2000
Tribute to Soldier Poets
__________
Keith Wilson: “Naval Academy graduate, Korean War vet, former college professor, now retired in my native state of New Mexico, I collect old fountain pens and participate in an extremely active art community in the Las Cruces-El Paso area.”
