Battle Casualty

by Joe Landsberger

A friend, or did I ever meet him?
Tears--grief on the shoulder of a friend.
An embrace--held for seconds too long.
Wanting to abate the sorrow.

It was a sort of ambush--in war
Illogically concluding a survival march
Through the roughest of terrain, a struggle
Thickets, scratched, bruised, a journey in death.

I knew him well, and didn't know him.
I have mementos of meetings which never took place.
I share them with friends, as they share theirs
We console each other, and strain to remember.

I have his Brahms' recording, in perfect pitch
He introduces it, but in voice oddly brash.
We strain to remember, to decipher what
He voiced, what was his voice?

Do you know what it is like to mourn?
A grief you meet ahead of time.  He knew.
Conceiving an image as in a dream as in a valley
obscured with the fog of your own memories.

A few of my short "Webpoems":

Spring | Wintering | Mist | Battle Casualty | Nonprayer