I have looked for another way of contacting you with this poem without success. It would be a great honor to have it included in your web page. My son, Dylan, is in the Air Force Security Forces and has been to Iraq twice and will return in June. On the last tour he was assigned to an Army unit that convoyed supplies from Balad to FOBs. It seems that the Army is wearing out. Thanks.

Regards,
Dave Kannas

                             (with thanks to Jim Lehrer)
There was a time, years ago, another age
when this began, this silence.
And now, in silence 10, 12, 14 more.

Always more, never less.
But there were days, long ago,
in another age, when more was less.
When silence wasn't so silent.
Now, in silence, 15, 15, 17 more.

Breathing isn't important anymore.
When will that be accepted fact?
The lack of breathing, this silence, makes hearing easier.
And again, in silence, some more.

You'd think we'd know by now.
About death, that it's silent.
No breathing in death.
That the young are the most silent, loud in life, silent in death.
But here are more, a squad.

Smiles, no smiles, starched and rumpled, bright and not.
Some loved, some loved more.
All silent, not breathing.
Always in frames on tables, always young, mostly.
Always more, and in silence.

War is like this, it makes silence.
Makes life stop, frames life.
Frames faces of silent souls.
This silence maker, war.

But it's worse than that, this war, this maker of silence.
It's the end, the end to honesty in death.
We call it something else.
Heroic sacrifice, for example.

Continued in the name of more death, this war.
So previous death isn't for naught, they say.
So freedom can reign, they say.
So there can be more silence.

So we can continue in silence.
How many more, how much silence before the end?
Before the end of youth and hope?
And here, in silence.


David Kannas, November, 2006