“[I]n times of crisis it’s interesting that people don’t turn to the novel or say, ‘We should all go out to a movie,’ or ‘Ballet would help us.’ It’s always poetry. What we want to hear is a human voice speaking directly in our ear.”

Billy Collins, U.S. Poet Laureate (2001-2003) to the New York Times, quoted in The Dead Beat by Marilyn Johnson

this diary is dedicated to all who suffer because of war and other disasters

we honor courage in all its forms

cross-posted at DailyKos, Booman Tribune, European Tribune, and My Left Wing.

april is national poetry month

image and story excerpt below the fold

This May 28, 2005 photo, location unknown, and provided by the Kentucky National Guard shows Staff Sgt. Brock A. Beery, 30, of Whitehouse, Tenn., with his wife, Sara Beery. Beery a Kentucky National Guard Soldier was killed when his armored vehicle encountered an improvised explosive device (IED) near Al Habbaniyah, west of Fallujah, Iraq on Thursday, March 23, 2006. Beery was assigned to the Kentucky Army National Guards Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 2nd Battalion, 123rd Armor, based in Bowling Green, Ky.
(AP Photo/Kentucky National Guard)

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My wife gave me a book last night, an early birthday present.

“Is it one I’ve asked for?” I inquired, noting that, if it wasn’t, she might be taking a chance.

“No, I heard about it on the radio, and I knew right away that you’d like it,” she replied. “Give me some credit, will you?”

She was right. She’s always right. I should have figured that out by now.

Today’s text is from one of the obituary writers profiled in the book.

from Final Salute
by Jim Sheeler for The Rocky Mountain News
November 9, 2005

Inside a limousine parked on the airport tarmac, Katherine Cathey looked out at the clear night sky and felt a kick.

“He’s moving,” she said. “Come feel him. He’s moving.”

Her two best friends leaned forward on the soft leather seats and put their hands on her stomach.

“I felt it,” one of them said. “I felt it.”

Outside, the whine of jet engines swelled.

“Oh, sweetie,” her friend said. “I think this is his plane.”

As the three young women peered through the tinted windows, Katherine squeezed a set of dog tags stamped with the same name as her unborn son:

James J. Cathey.

“He wasn’t supposed to come home this way,” she said, tightening her grip on the tags, which were linked by a necklace to her husband’s wedding ring.

The women looked through the back window. Then the 23-year-old placed her hand on her pregnant belly.

“Everything that made me happy is on that plane,” she said.

They watched as airport workers rolled a conveyor belt to the rear of the plane, followed by six solemn Marines.

Katherine turned from the window and closed her eyes.

“I don’t want it to be dark right now. I wish it was daytime,” she said. “I wish it was daytime for the rest of my life. The night is just too hard.”

Suddenly, the car door opened. A white-gloved hand reached into the limousine from outside – the same hand that had knocked on Katherine’s door in Brighton five days earlier.

The man in the deep blue uniform knelt down to meet her eyes, speaking in a soft, steady voice.

“Katherine,” said Maj. Steve Beck, “it’s time.”

Read the complete piece.

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