Mending the Cloth - Jackie Hallerberg

[Larry Robinson]

Mending the Cloth
 
For my ailing father, WWII Veteran and POW/MIA for nine months, and

his fallen Humpin’ Honey B-29 crew, lost 12-7-44.

 
Through the slits of sun shining on the backroads,
I imagine my father's fallen crew sewing
him back together when he crosses over.
 
Nine men, each with silk from the parachutes
they never had time to open, taking the tiniest
of stitches to mend his torn cloth.
 
In return, my father gives back the singular
heartbeats he has carried for them
these past sixty-eight years.
 
Finally free of the weight
of each man's final moments, my father soars
back to his hometown, to his mother and father and sisters,
 
to the wife and daughters who knew
a duty-bound man with unresolved grief
and the guilt of having survived.
 
Sometimes the most generous contracts we make
carry the heaviest burdens. It takes
years until the debt is repaid,
each side to the other.
 
Sometimes we never know the reason
so many had to suffer.  We can only know
what the heavens reveal
 
on a solitary afternoon when peace drops in
alone and unannounced
like a silver needle
falling from the sky.
 
 
	- Jackie Hallerberg
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