I heard a newsclip about lightning canceling Obama's Memorial Day speech, and I thought up this poem in about five minutes.
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The rain begins in the cemetery
And lighting flashes over Chicago.
Even the President is hurried away
Urging others to carefully go.
But he stays.
It doesn’t matter what his name is.
Once, he was a serial number in a cell far away.
Sitting in his wheelchair, some offer to push him
While others scurry and run away.
He never ran.
Not then, not now,
He never ran when the flashing in the sky
Was something far more deadly than lightning.
He stayed, lost his leg, shocked each time that he didn’t die.
Some saw danger and fled.
Most still ended up dead.
Another man comes up to him and warns him he should leave.
“It’s dangerous with the lightning and you in this chair.”
The veteran just laughs, a creaky, sagely sound.
“Sorry sonny, but you had to have been there.”
What did he know of danger,
This plumped and spoiled stranger?
He never ran away from his buddies,
Not on the battlefield, and not by their grave.
He stays to remember the pranks they played in boot camp.
He stays to remember the sacrifice they gave.
He chuckles to himself while others run with umbrellas.
He remembers the lightning storm in that land far away,
An open field, more metal on him then than this wheelchair,
And they had considered that to be a good day!
The rain soaks his white hair as he salutes.
“I never ran, my friends.
And because I didn’t run, I’ll never run again,
And true, the pain never ends.
But that’s okay.
I can sit in this wheelchair, sit in this rain,
While others flee the storm, and I can
Tell all of you heroes quite proudly:
I never ran!”
