The Leaf Rider 8/5/85
(after the manner of the Eorlingas)
~
Where now are chopper and rider?
Cartridge belt gold gleaming,
Sunshower spray glistening,
A circlet of rainbow
Below the blades sweeping;
~
Out over the wire leaping,
Like leaves before the tempest reeling,
The greening blades of the paddies mirroring,
Bathed in the tropic heat, yet
In their ruffled blue fields shivering;
~
With the winds of war forward,
And childhood past remembering,
Is gone, as fast as the wind furrows
In the green-blue carpet
At first burst banished by bullets and blood.
Whither the windhover,
Above tangled green gliding,
The riders' glance sees not
The hurricane, the land
Their metal steeds' clacking racket
So on down to the great grass
To tree line on tree line
And always some never more
And some bodies for a time
While many minds and hearts hurt worse than
Yet new faces old places ever
Steady as the monsoon rain's
As regular as its
The long hot months into years
Till they all were
* * * * * * * * * *
So say men over a shot and beer
No knights in armor
Who once were lads in the summer
And did their job of
Someone else sometimes scathed becoming.
- Gerald Alan Ney
