A Poem on World War 2

(dedicated to my grandpa George Sigfred Nelson
who volunteered and served on a U.S. minesweeper)

It was not a good war
(modern war is rarely if ever "good" :
way too much horror and death)
but it was a just war,
a necessary war

a war fought that
there might be no master races,
that the world might see some liberty
and civilization,
that the working poor
might finally get a "new deal" ...
that all might see some
peacable prosperity:
and that murderous imperialism
might be returned to angry beer-halls
and some reactionary country clubs

And so much of this,
if in mysterious ways,
has come to pass:
today on TV
I saw a university bar in Italy
full of blacks and whites
doing average things,
the anchor-woman interviewed
the black bartender,
a witty civilized fellow,
and nobody called him "boy" ;
outside, no militant guards prowled the streets
thumping their billy-clubs,
no bombers of any flag
prowled the skies with terrible cargoes

You can see much of the same
in Ashland, Oregon
a wealthy, modern city
where used book-stores are still in fashion,
where diverse ideas prosper,
and most hippie travellers
find a warm reception...
if they likewise respect
"the rights of man"

And it isn't perfect,
but is there not an Israel?
Does this productive and
long-persecuted people
not have, along with Germany,
a place in the sun?

Ah, but what about the Russians?
Were they not once our brothers-in-arms?
Did they not throw down their lives
by the millions?
Did they not fight and starve at Leningrad?

I say it is good to think of D-Day,
and to remember what it was for,
good to listen to the speeches
of Hitler and Himmler ascendant;
It is not maybe for the overly sensitive,
and even America in her finest and noblest hour
was far from perfect

But, perfection
like a peaceful utopian world,
is a day-dream for those
who eat with expensive polished silver

I say WW2 has not passed,
is not history:
the struggle goes on:
greed against humanity
"patriotic" fanaticism against sanity

We have remembered
and still remember,
and brothers and sisters
with and without arms we fight,
that it may never happen again