<html aria-label="message body"><head><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=us-ascii"></head><body style="overflow-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><div dir="auto" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;"><div style="font-size: 22px;">The Poem In Time Of War</div><div style="font-size: 22px;"><br></div><div style="font-size: 22px;">should wake the city shouting EXTRA! EXTRA!</div><div style="font-size: 22px;">then whisper the story behind the story</div><div style="font-size: 22px;">like a conspirator. It should be short, stirring</div><div style="font-size: 22px;">as the president's call to arms;</div><div style="font-size: 22px;">soft enough for a flag at half-mast;</div><div style="font-size: 22px;">strong enough to stiffen the bereaved;</div><div style="font-size: 22px;">spacious enough to serve as a body bag.</div><div style="font-size: 22px;"><br></div><div style="font-size: 22px;">The poem should carry the news that men</div><div style="font-size: 22px;">die miserably for lack of. It is</div><div style="font-size: 22px;">a brief on behalf of the living, a paper megaphone</div><div style="font-size: 22px;">for the voices of the dead. It must be</div><div style="font-size: 22px;">the world's last will and testament, a listing</div><div style="font-size: 22px;">of what will be left. It steals from forebears:</div><div style="font-size: 22px;">Sassoon's doomed diary and Auden's call to love.</div><div style="font-size: 22px;"><br></div><div style="font-size: 22px;">The poem would be a prescription for healing</div><div style="font-size: 22px;">but who could read such a scrawl?...or a bandage</div><div style="font-size: 22px;">over the wounds, except that blood</div><div style="font-size: 22px;">tends to obliterate words.</div><div style="font-size: 22px;">Maybe all the war poems could be sewn together</div><div style="font-size: 22px;">into a vast thick quilt we'd pull around</div><div style="font-size: 22px;">our shoulders; might warm us on nights like this.</div><div style="font-size: 22px;"><br></div><div style="font-size: 22px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>- Sherman Pearl </div></div></body></html>