One more day. A soldier prayer. And a powerful song by Helena Cinto.

(April is poetry month. New poetry number seven.)

A soldier prayer.

1- Young men go to war, old men return.

2- Can you kill and murder? Can you forget the blood on your hands? Some soldiers can,

some soldier cannot.

3- I been to my soldier friend’s graves and I stood with their children. I asked the same question my

Korea war veteran father asked the rum in the midnight hours. Why did I live and they did not?

4- When my father drank too much rum. He wanted to visit his friend from the Korea war.

We would pack lightly and we would drive heading toward California on Highway 94. We would make Chicago

and he would fall asleep. Years later, I went with him to San Francisco. We found the grave of his friend and the words on the

gravestone. Sgt. John Wilson, killed in the Korea war in 1952. I did not know. Did my father heal? Or did he learn to accept?

5- One more day and I will be done,

one more day and I can go home.

I asked God and the Devil, do not allow me to die in the Korea dirt.

One more day and I can breathe right again.

John