The anxieties and worries of the past few months bring me to wonder about another time of national crisis.

In the early 1970s, there was war to worry about. And a draft. With three sons, two of them approaching the age to be called up, Mom and Dad must have been concerned beyond belief.

We’d just moved to Fairfield, Connecticut. Richard Nixon was president. And Vietnam was on fire.

Here are some of Mom’s raw war poems from that time:

In This War, No Bird

In this war, no bird
or morning song of man is heard
at sunrise, only the guns, now
there is light enough, and breath
to voice again this blasphemy of death.

~ Joan Vayo ~ September 28, 1971

To A Young Man Dying In A War He Did Not Make

Is this the color of death – green? The boy
falls from the sky over the young fields,
this glorious May morning when the wind lay
tethered, not a cloud in memory.

Death is black and brown and gray and mustard
and blood red. How can it ever be
the green of hope and spring and life.
Make him a bed.
Welcome him home, earth; this time he comes
to stay.

~ Joan Vayo ~ February 22, 1971

After we all cry for the many young men these war poems could not bring back, this next verse brings Mom’s whimsy and comfort:

Let there be peace on earth. And peace in our hearts.

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“In This War, No Bird” and “To A Young Man Dying In A War He Did Not Make”  © 1971 and “Point of View” © 1972 Joan Vayo. All rights reserved.

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