Monterosso Alma

As a machine-gunner's body burned where he had rolled, smoked, stopped just where

we entered the town,

everybody was spreading a decoration on the balconies ---

the luckiest by accident a faded American flag with fewer stars; the most calculating

and full of jest an ill-crossed Union Jack;

the handsomest and most sincere a heavy table cloth, all of cream.

And even the sullen recruits in the artillery training barracks sat down in quiet

and relief, well guarded

to listen to virulent Fascist warriors being grenaded out of their caves by our men;

and an old witch who turned pander

this day showed us welcome, German, ice-cold beer;

and in civilian clothes it was a day for Italians to stand in windows to cheer

and just for minutes to urge us to stop.

One precaution paisan, the frensied enthusiast, gave our platoon his wine bottles

and whirled his accordian music through the air while wine-fumes curled in our

stomachs

like patterns -- and there were thrown roses arching through the air, too, on our

rear guard.

Harmless bullets exploded on the Broda's pan, by the gunner burning at the edge of

the town:

we lived through a symbol,

we marched decoratively and our being was a legend;

I can never rejoice while carnival men are working and hamburger stands are smoking

and not live more that day.

june. '49

(memory of July, 1943)