New Poetry by Robert Demaree

TO OUR SON-IN-LAW RETURNING FROM IRAQ: APRIL 2003

That you were a writer and not a soldier

Made you no less brave,

Your war short, hard to defend,

But no less noble.

You went to report on things Homer had seen,

In a land older than Hector.

We found you on a map of unknown places,

Read your dispatches, heard you on TV:

We tasted sand and young men’s fear.

We did not attend rallies of protest or support

But went instead with your sons

To soccer games and preschool plays.

I do not pray much but prayed for you.

We read your coming-home piece

And thought of Odysseus.

We tracked your journey—Kuwait, London.

That night I went back downstairs after midnight

And turned on the computer again,

To be sure that your plane had touched down.

- Robert Demaree 2012

“To Our Son-in-Law, Returning from Iraq” appeared in miller’s pond, January 2008.

NAMES

The American Legion hut

In their small town

Had been named

For her great-uncle,

The first to fall in France.

But after another war,

Another hut,

Named for someone else.

The basketball court

That honored the famous coach

Is darkened now and unused.

At the school where her father taught

They established a prize in his memory

She wonders if they still give it.

You can have something named for you

For a while

And then not.

- Robert Demaree 2012

Robert Demaree is the author of four collections of poems, including Mileposts (October 2009), published by Beech River Books. The winner of the 2007 Conway, N.H., Library Poetry Award, he is a retired school administrator with ties to North Carolina, Pennsylvania and New Hampshire. He has had over 550 poems published or accepted by 125 periodicals, including Louisville Review, miller’s pond, and BluePepper. For further information see http://www.demareepoetry.blogspot.com