Uncle Billy, sole survivor of his World War II platoon  squad,
remembered clearly the moment his good buddy,
was shot in the head and toppled over
right beside him.  Though Billy insisted
he saw his friend standing over his own
ravaged fallen body—confused, shocked,
not knowing where his spirit-being,
so clearly visible to Billy, should go next. 

Billy told his nephew this story some years later. 
When questioned by skeptical relatives,
Billy calmly replied, “I don’t just think this happened,
I lived it.”  Thank you Uncle Billy for daring
to know the shape of that space between life
and death where the stunned spirit lingers
as the last blood flows from the collapsed
flesh house it inhabited for just twenty years.
                                                  12/7/24

*Note for the reader: Uncle Billy survived every one of the major battles in the Philippines during WWII. I’m posting this poem today, as our nation has entered another war. April 6, 1942 marks one of the last days of the Battle of Bataan which Uncle Billy experienced.