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ISSN
1942-2067
Copyright © 2008 Pirene's Fountain.
All Rights Reserved.
Last updated:
October 2008 |
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Bob has won numerous awards for his writing. Among those, one for his poems "Shadows of Iwo Jima" in the 72nd Annual Writer's Digest Writing Competition of 2002. It was also published by the Marines in their Leatherneck magazine in 2003. Mr. Hartson also won first prize for the State of Michigan's Lands Poetry Writing Competition in 2003, for his poem, "Beautifully Bruised."
Married, with six children and five grandchildren, he is a retired United States Marine who lives in western Michigan. It is interesting to note that Bob has been a professional Santa Claus for over forty-seven years.
Constant Autumn | Shadows of Iwo Jima
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Constant Autumn
Crimson and gold fluttering leaves
perpetually spin forth the memories.
For it was such a day that he left us . . .
that boy with a golden shock of hair
and dimpled chin.
He would have raked that afternoon--
built pillowed stacks, and performed
jumping jacks inside, scooping showers of
color in the middle of our yard.
Showing off for her.
He and I would have popped the corn,
guzzled the pop,
hunkered down, and screamed in chorus
watching our team score touchdowns with
our father and son feet on the coffee table.
That Autumn day would prove to be short,
yet, so horribly long-- His boyish grin
becoming a memory in the winds of disaster--
whisking away his mother's heart,
as well as his father's soul . . .
Forever.
Shadows of Iwo Jima
The monument lunges seventy-eight feet
Into the Arlington sky.
Six bronzed heroes, carved thirty-two feet,
with camouflaged heads and sixteen foot rifles.
Detailed crevices gouged in their faces.
Wrinkles etch their spotted combat clothes
like grooved shadows of sorrow.
Free-flowing red, white and blue
flaps and ripples in the bitter wintry air,
replicating majestic passions of February '45,
at summit of Japan's Mount Surabachi.
Towering remembrance of rage,
bloody brutal battle,
and forever silence. . . of
25,000 buried within.
Their bronzed vacant eyes mirror hills splashed
with ripped, twisted steel and mounds of bodies.
Their nostrils burn
from smoldering rubber and festering remains.
They hear the echo of wailing comrades,
and enemies alike.
Black polished granite beneath their boots
bear no names, still,
the epitaph resounds:
"Uncommon Valor Was A Common Virtue" |
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