The Red Sox were in the middle of the "Impossible Dream" season, college students were everywhere, and my shipmates and I had six months of shore duty as we readied a brand new ship for Vietnam.
Those of us on my ship knew it would end in 1968 when we would find ourselves in the middle of the war.
I spent part of the summer with a lovely young woman who looked at the world with a naive sense of joy. She thought it was a world where you could dream and plan. I knew it was a world filled with infinite uncertainties.
We talked past each other for weeks. Finally, the conversations stopped as the war began to close in on me.
It was a time when, all over the country, people were travelling the same roads but crashing frequently as lives took sudden turns. The injuries bruised our bodies and minds, and sometimes our hearts.
Purple Hearts (In the Cat's Eye, 2009) is about the injuries that happened to many of us as the seedlings of war blew across the country.
Glenn K. Currie
Purple Hearts
Sheltered in tall
grass.
Our resting place,
Not yet turned to
straw.
She talked of
futures,
In a world without
one.
I watched a hawk
circling above,
Seeking prey.
She was the sweet
corn,
Picked fresh from the
field,
Tasting of salt
And butter and sugar.
We passed the season
Pretending the winds
Would never grow
colder,
The days never older.
We didn’t really say
goodbye.
We just stopped
saying hello.
I sold my car in the
fall,
And packed away my
childhood,
Burying part of
myself.
She phoned one day,
Just before I shipped
out.
She called me a
bastard.
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