Tears of a soldier for lost comrades
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Editor’s note: Kyle Carmody wrote the following poem in honour of his grandfather, James Glenesk.
Veteran
The gift itself was just a wooden box, and I was just a little boy. My Grandpa Jim unwrapped it from the wrong side and he saw only the flat back of it; the soft rosewood, the dark, inlaid banding, the practiced dovetail joints, so he knew it was the work of my dad, and to dad he offered thanks, despite having only seen the back. I urged him to flip the box over, but mom cringed as I did, and Uncle Rob sat solemn, and Auntie Jan had a tooth in her lip, and my older brothers seemed to understand what I did not, and Nana Betty was pale as she looked upon her husband, whose hands then turned the box, slowly, until he gazed upon its glass front. Then he dropped it to his lap, he dropped his head to his hands, and he choked and gasped as he remembered how to cry, a battle between a soldier and his sentiments waging upon his face. He lost that battle, and the tears, like his comrades of an age past, fell. I saw then, in his lenses, the reflections of six polished medallions.
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