The Old Liberators
BY ROBERT HEDIN
Of all the people in the mornings at the mall,
it’s the old liberators I like best,
those veterans of the Bulge, Anzio, or Monte Cassino
I see lost in Automotive or back in Home Repair,
bored among the paints and power tools.
Or the really old ones, the ones who are going fast,
who keep dozing off in the little orchards
of shade under the distant skylights.
All around, from one bright rack to another,
their wives stride big as generals,
their handbags bulging like ripe fruit.
They are almost all gone now,
and with them they are taking the flak
and fire storms, the names of the old bombing runs.
Each day a little more of their memory goes out,
darkens the way a house darkens,
its rooms quietly filling with evening,
until nothing but the wind lifts the lace curtains,
the wind bearing through the empty rooms
the rich far off scent of gardens
where just now, this morning,
light is falling on the wild philodendrons.
This poem is filled with so much grace and, perhaps, describes a grace that is getting more and more rare with each day. I don't understand the references, but I like the idea that they allude to a generational gap that isn't seen to often. Men shopping with their wives just for the mere support of it all. I, too, am guilty of a lack of grace here- I am on a mission when I am shopping and prefer to shop alone...and sometimes, when I am in no need to race back to work or the gym or continue my list of errands I, too, can find this type of moment...an empty moment that we get to choose what to fill it with.
ReplyDeleteThese old liberators are literally veterans of WWII. "Bulge, Anzio, or Monte Cassino" are all battle grounds in WWII.
ReplyDeleteIt's a sad ending even though the last line suggests new growth, and a new generation of wild philodendrons. The narrator suggests that the veterans are being forgotten, or maybe I'm reading that into the poem. I do feel like they are forgotten. They are a part of history and glorified films now. The individual men and women, we don't remember them.
I didn't know the WWII references- thank you! Love the thoughts on philodendrons and being forgotten...but in a way I suppose we could flip the loss of memory into a sense of peace- that their memory is somehow being healed and replaced with the garden where there is no more war, no more hard endings...only "the wind lift[ing] the lace curtains...scent of gardens....wild philodendrons...". Peace.
ReplyDeleteI like your ending better than mine!
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