The Things They Found, a Poem About What They Carried

War is beautiful; War is paradoxical,
We got ourselves a nice mellow war today.
All that peace, man, it felt so good it hurt.
It’s about sunlight.
you look up and see the sun and a few puffy white clouds,
you feel wonder and awe at the setting of the sun,
the immense serenity flashes against your eyeballs--
when he died it was almost beautiful,
the way the sunlight came around him and lifted him high
into a tree full of moss and vines and white blossoms.
-- and even though you’re pinned down by war you never felt more at peace.
The truths are contradictory.
War is nasty; War is fun.
But in truth war is also beauty.
For all its horror,
you can’t help but gape at the awful majesty of combat.
-- a powerful, implacable beauty--
you’re never more alive than when you’re almost dead.
that proximity to death brings with it a corresponding proximity to life.
--your truest self,
the human being you want to be and then become by the force of wanting it.
you love what’s best in yourself and in the world, all that might be lost.
you’re in touch with the far side of yourself.
It was a love story.
It’s about love and memory.
feeling both love and hate,
He hated her.
but it was a hard, hating kind of love.
because he was so much in love,
He loved her but he hated her.
“I love her.”