Small Pain In My Chest by Michael Mack

[winter156.livejournal.com]

The soldier boy was sitting calmly underneath that tree. As I approached it, I could see him beckoning to me. The battle had been long and hard and lasted through the night And scores of figures on the ground lay still by morning's light. "I wonder if you'd help me, sir", he smiled as best he could. "A sip of water on this morn would surely do me good. We fought all day and fought all night with scarcely any rest - A sip of water for I have a small pain in my chest." As I looked at him, I could see the large stain on his shirt All reddish-brown from his warm blood mixed in with Asian dirt. "Not much", said he. "I count myself more lucky than the rest. They're all gone while I just have a small pain in my chest." "Must be fatigue", he weakly smiled. "I must be getting old. I see the sun is shining bright and yet I'm feeling cold. We climbed the hill, two hundred strong, but as we cleared the crest, The night exploded and I felt this small pain in my chest." "I looked around to get some aid - the only things I found Were big, deep craters in the earth - bodies on the ground. I kept on firing at them, sir. I tried to do my best, But finally sat down with this small pain in my chest." "I'm grateful, sir", he whispered, as I handed my canteen And smiled a smile that was, I think, the brightest that I've seen. "Seems silly that a man my size so full of vim and zest, Could find himself defeated by a small pain in his chest." "What would my wife be thinking of her man so strong and grown, If she could see me sitting here, too weak to stand alone? Could my mother have imagined, as she held me to her breast, That I'd be sitting HERE one day with this pain in my chest?" "Can it be getting dark so soon?" He winced up at the sun. "It's growing dim and I thought that the day had just begun. I think, before I travel on, I'll get a little rest .......... And, quietly, the boy died from that small pain in his chest. I don't recall what happened then. I think I must have cried; I put my arms around him and I pulled him to my side And, as I held him to me, I could feel our wounds were pressed The large one in my heart against the small one in his chest.

Comments

[skonen-blades.livejournal.com]

Oh my god that's fantastic

[winter156.livejournal.com]

I cried the first time I read it. It moved me.

[aliased.livejournal.com]

this reminds me of Wilfred Owen:

We climbed the hill, two hundred strong, but as we cleared the crest,
The night exploded and I felt this small pain in my chest.
-- Spring Offensive:
So, soon they topped the hill, and raced together
Over an open stretch of herb and heather
Exposed. And instantly the whole sky burned
With fury against them; and soft sudden cups
Opened in thousands for their blood; and the green slopes
Chasmed and steepened sheer to infinite space.

and Asleep
Under his helmet, up against his pack,
After so many days of work and waking,
Sleep took him by the brow and laid him back.

There, in the happy no-time of his sleeping,
Death took him by the heart. There heaved a quaking
Of the aborted life within him leaping,
Then chest and sleepy arms once more fell slack.

And soon the slow, stray blood came creeping
From the intruding lead, like ants on track.

Whether his deeper sleep lie shaded by the shaking
Of great wings, and the thoughts that hung the stars,
High-pillowed on calm pillows of God's making,
Above these clouds, these rains, these sleets of lead,
And these winds' scimitars,
-Or whether yet his thin and sodden head
Confuses more and more with the low mould,
His hair being one with the grey grass
Of finished fields, and wire-scrags rusty-old,
Who knows? Who hopes? Who troubles? Let it pass!
He sleeps. He sleeps less tremulous, less cold,
Than we who wake, and waking say Alas!

[winter156.livejournal.com]

That's a lovely piece.