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Rated: E · Poetry · Military · #1092481
My first poem as I arrived in Iraq in summer of 2005, which has been featured elsewhere
** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only **
IRON BIRD


You fill the skies with noise, and your presence means so much
To those of us, here on the ground, doing things and stuff and such,
So I was thinking of some lines to tell the folks back home
just what it’s like to see you, in the twilight where you roam.

Iron Bird, you bring my friends to join me in the fight,
With mighty noise and clamor as you swoop down in the night,
The thumping of your blades drowned by the hissing of the sands
That you kick up to cloak you in so many distant lands.

Sometimes I see at twilight, when I gaze up from the chair
That I drag outside to try and enjoy the briefly cooling air,
Your shadow crossing over, seen against the tower and light,
before you’re hidden, deeply, in the fast enfolding night.

Iron Bird, you take us in the safety of the dark,
You touch the ground and hover as we jump to disembark.
Our hunt is on, and then when done, you meet us once again,
To bring us back to roost, behind the guns of fellow men.

Iron Bird, you bring us tools and gadgets for our ease,
To make easier our lot in this place of blazing breeze.
You speed across the rivers, ‘cross the fields and the farms,
A land so full of promise, and not without its charms.

When some men look with envy, at the fortress walls we’ve made,
They cringe at your approach, and into shadows back they fade
For well they know, that in your arms, are carried men of war,
And they can only stand and watch as you fly to bring some more.

So fly on, Iron Bird, and bring me all my fighting friends,
For my own time to climb aboard is not until this ends,
My hunt’s begun, but only just, and it’s here I make my stand,
Because I’ve a job to do in this dry and thirsty land.

But time enough will come, for the hopes and dreams of home;
For now, my life’s whole purpose underneath this starlit dome,
Is man my post, but still I watch as Iron Bird arrives,
In this nesting place for Iron Bird, the chariot of our lives.

© 08 AUG 2005 by SSG JSR - Photo © 2005 by 2LT WEK
© Copyright 2006 The Knight Has Found Romance (theknight at Writing.Com). All rights reserved.
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