Dan Hanosh's Warriors and Wars: The Brave Few: Washington

Thursday, April 19, 2007

The Trip I Have Yet To Make

The Trip I have yet to make . . .

Many years ago, I decided I would take the train to Washington . . .

I love to ride on Amtrak. I love to talk with all the various people. Once I went from Tucson to Chicago. Every moment was an adventure, every moment I met someone new. And afterwards I coined the idea of traveling to Washington to see the museums, but my real reason was to meet the men on the Vietnam memorial . . .

You see I wanted to meet them face to face, I wanted to feel their pain at least what was left to feel. I wanted to feel the cold granite beneath my palm and leave something that would give me a sense of sacrifice . . . But what do I have that would suffice?

And then it dawned on me . . . A poem, by me, for their eyes only. I would write it, print it, frame it and then delete all signs of it from my computer, as though I’d never wrote it. And I would call it, “For Their Eyes, Only”.

And then maybe I could feel twinge of a sacrifice for them.