The Dreamer


I am flying
Young, strong, confidant
Slipping quietly, gracefully through the brisk morning air
Weightless in body and spirit
My eyes wide and searching, I smile

Ahead of me dark menacing clouds flash and thunder
Moving away, threatening some other time and place
For now the Earth below me is green and wet
Soaked and shimmering in God’s fresh new day
This storm has passed me by

To the East
The sun, now a huge orange blaze
Surges upward from behind high rocky peaks
Pushing both dark shadow and shimmering light downward
In a dazzling race towards the quiet valley below

Blue-green mountains glimmer in the rising sun
Warming the lush damp foliage
The flaming ball is so close, so bright, you can almost hear it roar
As billowing patches of pure, white mist escapes from the hills
Only to be captured then dispersed by invisible winds

To the West, tawny sand covered beaches
Sprinkle down to a sparkling emerald sea
Peacefully I watch as milky white caps appear on wave tops
And roll endlessly towards the shore
Breathless beauty, my heart fills with joy

I move constantly forward, free of pain and worry
The only sound is the wind
As it rushes over me, fresh and clean
Whistling sweet musical notes through my hair
Caressing my body with its warmth

Above me is an endless pale blue sky
Washed clean after the evening storm
I am soaring through the Canvas of God
Painted here on His Masterpiece for this tiny speck of time
But it is my time

I am filled with exhilaration, hope and wonder
The world is mine to conquer and explore
I am ageless, alive, and free
I have time, a whole lifetime ahead of me
And I have just begun

On the horizon I see many clearings
Passed over by the storm
Small patches of tangled ground amidst the lush landscape
People, one, two, or more, shift about within them
Moving around aimlessly as if lost, abandoned

Approaching I see others farther on
Marching away from the clearings
Hard, courageous, determined, sharp-eyed young men
On line, moving slowly, cautiously across the ground
Pursuing the storm

It is to one such clearing that I am irresistibly drawn
I know not why
Yet it is here I am compelled go
My joy is fading
Some new feeling of dread claws at my heart

Reaching this clearing I float above two small figures
Around them hangs a foggy mist
Waiting for the sun to burn it away
The air is humid, growing hotter
And down here there is no breeze

Everything is wet, sparkling in the now bright sun
Tall yellow grass lies bent and trampled
Crystal clear rain rests on broad, green leaves
As pure, cadenced droplets fall into small, scattered puddles
Yet make no sound

These two have been left behind
One is prone, on his back, lifeless
He is dressed in tattered shorts, baring skinny, leathered legs
Sandals on his feet, arms thrown out to his sides
The other man kneels over him, obscuring the dead man’s head

As I draw closer this man’s back is to me
Caught in the storm he is drenched
Wearing a dark green T-shirt
Camouflaged, bloused trousers
And scuffed, mud-covered jungle boots

His short blonde hair is cut to a high and tight
His head and arms tanned to a deep bronze
Sweat pours off his head, down across his young face
And drips onto the now uncaring man below
As the sun bears down steam rises from his dampened form

A scoped rifle lies spent and discarded to his right
Behind him rests a worn, crumpled flak jacket
Along with a faded, sweat stained jungle cover
Dropped haphazardly down by his feet
The mission now over, their purpose forgotten, they are useless

Hunched over the dead man
So engrossed in some gruesome task
He is oblivious to everything around him
Head bowed, he never looks up
He now has but one single objective

His arms move upward, above the dead man
Grasps at something and then return
First one arm
Then the other
Over and over again

Movements choreographed like a perfect dance
As taunt muscles across his back and shoulders
Flex and release under his wet shirt
While a pair of silver dog tags swing to and fro
In a silent rhythm from a chain around his neck

No words are spoken
Not a sound can be heard
Yet his anguished thoughts come through to me
“Dear God…if I can fix him, we will be okay…
If I can fix him, we will be okay…Dear God…”

Again and again he repeats the words,
“Dear God…If I can fix him we will be okay…
If I can fix him we will be okay…
Dear God…If I can fix him we will be okay…
If I can fix him we will be okay…Dear God…”

All the while continuing his hidden task
As his arms reach out and upward
First one, then the other
Grasp and then return, grasp and then return
“Dear God…If I can fix him we will be okay…”

My flight has ceased
As I hang suspended above him, motionless
Transfixed, mesmerized
I can feel is heartbeat, his pulse, his pain
His desperation

“Dear God…If I can fix him we will be okay…”
With all my strength I try to break away
Oh to fly again, far from this terrible place
But all my struggles are in vain
As I sink closer to the ground

I turn away, hoping to escape
But my eyes are only drawn to another clearing
Just yards away
Were many people are dead
And still others are dying

They are old and young
Men, women and children
Scattered about in a haphazard circle
Like porcelain dolls thrown violently up into the air
Only to break apart upon landing

A vehicle, torn and twisted, burns by the side of a road
Uniformed men rush about
Putting out fires
Helping those who cry out
Others, with weapons, search for the demons who caused this

My eyes are drawn to one such young man
With an eerie feeling that I should know him
He runs with his weapon at port
Towards a distant hill
Just as he has been ordered

Again I hear no audible sounds from the clearing
Only what this man hears and his anguished thoughts
Inhuman screams of pain echo in his mind
As he runs past the dead and wounded
And glances at them only with hesitancy

He is young, innocent and this carnage is gruesome
“My God! This can’t be real!”
He cries out in his terrified mind
Yet he continues to run towards the hill
Fighting his growing panic as the training kicks in

He stops by a man lying on the steaming highway
Looks down at him, then raises his head and cries out,
“Corpsman up! Corpsman up!”
The man below him has one leg gone, a hole in his chest
“Corpsman up!” he yells again

An older man steps out from between two trucks
Taking a cigar from between his teeth
He says in a gentle voice,
“Forget it son, he’s already dead.”
But the voice sounds as if in slow motion and very far away

He looks at the older man And starts to say,
“But Gunny, he’s still breathing.”
But instead takes one more look at this poor soul
Then runs off towards the hill
Passing more mangled bodies

I try again to break away, to fly again
But it is no use as I watch this man run on
Again he has stopped
Drawn to an old man’s snowy white beard
He pauses over the old man and we see as one

The old man lies on his back
Both arms stretched out to his sides
As if he was Christ on The Cross
His long pointed beard sits neatly upon his chest
As if someone had come by to groom it

A long, thin white mustache fits perfectly across his upper lip
While his bald scalp is picked clean back to his ears
But once there to start long locks of pure white hair
That had somehow escaped his scalp
Only to run flowingly down to his shoulders

His face is restful, as if sleeping
Except that his dark brown eyes are wide open
Motionless, gazing straight up at the cloudy sky
Together we look deep into this old man’s eyes
Hypnotized by his death stare

Amazed that his eyes seem to be still alive
Clear and moist, yet unmoving
As a tear pools in one corner
Collects, then overflows the socket
To slide slowly down the old man’s cheek

The old man’s head and chest
Are untouched by the violence of his death
As we search down from his head to his chest
Slowly sliding our gaze to the horror we had glimpsed
When the young man had come upon him

All the while knowing what is not there
Yet unable not to look
Until we come to his waist
Where the old man has been cut in half
His hips and legs are gone

Feeling a gut wrenching ache in our stomachs
The young man turns away to retch
Only to find nothing to expel
He gasps, takes three deep breaths,
And runs off to the top of the hill

And I, feeling sick, take my eyes off his lone figure standing there
Finally able to once again turn away
I circle to the right to see that I am now yet closer to the ground
But only to come upon another clearing
To see a man huddled down in a muddy trench

The trench is three feet deep
Its sides, first marked from the carvings of an E-tool
Are now smooth and worn with weather and wear
Sandbags once stacked neatly around the lip now lay in disarray
Baked and blackened over endless time by a merciless sun

This man lies curled on his right side
His body pressed hard against the false security of the trench walls
Legs drawn up tight into his chest
Both hands clasped behind his head
Holding his chin down

Every muscle of his body remains hard and tense
A human ball lying in three inches of muddy water
His mind races with fear and utter helplessness
Yet this man is no coward
He would not be here if he was

His rifle stands braced upright against the wall
Useless as his enemies are now unseen
And out of range
In this fight there is nothing he can do
But pray

For now it is up to his Brothers in arty or the air
To stop this rain of death with their own
He knows that this onslaught will only last a few minutes
But time is always relevant
And here, in this hole, seconds can last a lifetime

Again all is silent except the sounds in his mind
And once again he shares them with me
Together we hear the dreadful ‘thump…thump’
As the mortar rounds exit their distant tubes
And together we count off the seconds to impact

We hear the deafening explosions as each round hits
Experience the blasts of hot air rushing over him
Feel the ground around him violently shake
As chunks of damp earth flake off the trench walls
And rattle down upon him

It seems as if the earth itself is trembling on its axis
As it shudders then tries to right itself
Only to be shaken again and again by this assault of hot steel
Night after night wearing him down
Shattering his spirit, his mind, his soul

Like the earth, this man will right himself
And tomorrow, if he finds them
He will again bravely face his enemies
For he has a warriors heart
But for now this heart only knows fear

He is ashamed of these feelings
And wonders if others are as afraid as he
For in his young mind
Brave men do not cower in holes
Knowing no better he has labeled himself a coward

But these thoughts will fade with the morning sun
As for now he continues to pray
With each incoming round
Erasing his odds of ever leaving this shallow grave, he pleads,
“Dear God please don’t let me die like this…”

Until finally, pushed to the end of endurance
His mind needs to escape
And thus goes forth where he wishes to be
Leaving his aching, trembling body in this muddy trench,
His mind simply goes home

Again I force myself to turn away
No longer wanting to face this terror
Nor feel his self-imposed shame
For he thinks that he is a coward
That with his fear he has dishonored his Father’s name

I close my eyes as I turn
And wonder at this young man
He is too young to understand
He is too proud
Too brave

Why does he not understand
That in this treacherous land
Every time he and his brothers pick up a rifle and move out
With every cautious step they take
While out on patrol

Every time they climb into a chopper
To be whisked away into the deadly unknown
Every time they step out of that airborne vehicle
And onto an unfriendly LZ
They are braver than the brave

That is courage
Courage that most will never know, or recognize
And yet because he feels such terrible fear
He brands himself unworthy, a coward
He is still just too young to understand

That the man who faces such dangers
And is aware of the dire consequences
Yet feels no fear
That man is not the hero
For that man is merely the fool

I open my eyes
To find that I have moved yet again closer to the earth
And before me is yet another terrible clearing
In the middle stands a lone figure in battle gear
Facing The Storm

Both his arms are raised towards the sky
With clenched fists, he shakes them violently upward
With every muscle straining
The veins in his arms and neck seem next to bursting
His face is grotesquely twisted with his savage rage

Again there are no sounds to be heard
But I perceive his angry shouts in my mind
Such rage, such fury,
I can feel it take control of my own being
And it is terrifying

He stands cursing God for The Storm
For his Brothers who have died and suffered
For the innocents who have perished
For the destruction, the pain, the waste
The futility

He swears at the Lord
For creating The Storm
For allowing it to happen
For not stopping it
For seeding The Storm so it grows perpetually stronger

As I feel his rage
I can sense from where it breeds
It is born from his pain
Growing from his frustrations and fear
Aging as he bears witness to the increasing annihilation

Until finally his rage reaches its maturity
Bringing him to the very edge of insanity
With that appalling, agonizing realization
That The Storm will never end
And will only move eternally on

Yet deep inside this man
I sense an uncertainty
A hesitation in his vindictiveness towards God
An inner acknowledgement
That his God is not truly at fault

For he knows that it is only man
Who perpetuates The Storm
That it is the evil among men that feeds the thunder
And generates the lightning’s flash
Which will ultimately destroy us all

But he knows too that no man will listen
Or give regards to his savage rage
But in his utter fatigue and disconsolation
He must vent or go insane
So to God he casts his anger

I have seen and felt too much
I am now desperate in my agony
To once and evermore turn away
To fly from these dreadful clearings
With a frenetic hope that my youthful ecstasy may return

I gather all my strength
Summon every ounce of my will
And with one gigantic effort
Strain my body upward
To catch the wind and to fly away

Yet with all my efforts,
Heartbroken I only find
That I have sunk even closer to the ground
And now suspended, spin slowly in a circle
As the dreadful clearings pass by

In one I see a Corpsman covered in blood
Kneeling over a wounded young man
But as he has done all that he could to save him
He now holds him as the boy dies
And speaks to him in soft loving whispers

For the boy in his delirium
Believes that he is once again in his father’s embrace
Asking to be taken home
And the Corpsman knowing these are the last words he’ll ever hear
Weeps as he tells the child he loves him

In another a baby, small naked and brown
Is fished from a swirling river
Limp and turning blue
As a mother, and her mother, cry out with such an agonizing sorrow
Of which I have never known

My rotation is slowing
As I see and feel one more image
Of young man who has stepped on a mine
Shredding his legs and groin
Crying out in an agonizing fear that he has lost his manhood

As the spinning stops
I have given up all hope of escaping this terrible place
And resign myself to the fact that my flight is over
By giving myself up to the bondage of the earth
Only to find that I have come full circle

Finishing my descent to the wet terrain
I now face the man crouching over his lifeless foe
And touch down softly, first with toe, then to heel
With a deep sickening sorrow of knowing
That I will never fly again

The weight of what I have witnessed
Is finally too much to bear
As my knees buckle, I fall and pitch forward
Striking the soft moist ground on hands and knees
And bow my head to stare, unfocused, into the mud below

Like a distant echo his chant drifts back to me
“If I can fix him, we will be okay…”
Slowly I raise my head
To look once more on his unknown task
And stare in silent horror as it is revealed to me

The top of the dead man’s head is fractured
Into three fists sized jagged pieces
Yet there is no blood, no gore
Each piece fits like the parts of a puzzle
As they magically float, one at a time, into the evening air

Still oblivious to my existence
The young man catches one piece with his right hand
But as he returns it to its proper position
Another piece floats away
So he catches that with his left

Yet once replaced they will not stay attached
And with only two hands
But three ghastly pieces
He cannot hold them all down
Thus resulting in this desperate and eternal task

Like a well trained juggler
The man never misses a beat
Right-left-right
Left-right-left
All the while reciting his desperate plea

“Dear God…if I can fix him we will be okay…
If I can fix him we will be okay…”
Right-left-right…
Then without disruption in his movements
He raises his head and faces me

His young face is streaked with dirt
His pearl white teeth shine against his tanned features
He is young, very young
Except for his dark blue eyes
Ringed with blackened circles, they are old

He looks through me as if I wasn’t there
These eyes show no spark, no hope, no tomorrows
His eyes tell me that he has seen violent death
And it seems, as if, somehow,
These eyes have foreseen his own

He lowers his head, returning to his task
His face haunts me, troubles me
He is too familiar
I know this man
For his face is mine

My head again drops
I close my eyes
As tears rush out and down my cheeks
For now I know
The Storm had not passed me by

For I had passed through its terrible, destructive eye
At once I realized
That all of this death, guilt, sorrow, grief and anger
Of which I had believed I was only a witness
Were actually my experiences, my life

But why am I still here
Why are any of us still here
Why are we all still trapped in these nightmarish clearings
Frustration and anger grows within me
Until, with all my strength, angrily I shout,

“The Storm has passed, why don’t we just go home?”
And an unknown multitude of voices
Over eons and eons of time
Whisper back to me as one
“We are home…”

My heart is crushed, not broken
For to say it was merely broken
Would falsely imply that it could be repaired
And like the task of the man now before me
There are things one can never mend

Then I knew
That somewhere
Out among these countless clearings
Lies a corpse less cemetery
Filled with endless rows of white markers

A marker for everyone who was ever caught in The Storm
And among the many names etched upon them
I would find mine, with the dates
B. 1950 – D. 1970
But my Brother’s bodies and mine are not buried there

Our loved ones never received that fateful telegram of
“A grateful nation …”
Yet the young men our loved ones once knew surely died here
As our youth, innocence, and dreams were buried here
So many years ago

With head still bowed I open my eyes
And watch as my tears fall into the water below
As my eyes start to clear and focus
I see that my tears will not mingle
With the pure, clear liquid it tries to join

It is then that I feel the sensation
Which was there as soon as I touched down
Of a tingling of my skin on hands and knees
And wherever else this water has touched me
There is a stirring that I have never felt before

Then came the knowledge, which had escaped me
That this wasn’t rain from The Storm
For The Storm brings only death and destruction
Leaving behind the pain, the sorrow and grief
But never a soothing relief of rain

I rise up to an upright position
Freeing my hands from the grip of the earth
And cupping them together
Scoop up this pure, fine liquid
And splash it onto my face

As the magical fluid cleanses my face,
Then runs down to dampen my chest
I can feel my sorrows being lifted
And as my spirit refreshes
I understand from hence it came

For it is not rain at all
And comes not from The Storm of devastation
Nor any dark and thundering cloud
For it is too clean, too pure,
Too Holy

It is my Christ who sends these showers
As He weeps at what He sees
Of what His children can do to each other
When The Storm thunders and strikes its hatred
Engulfing all mankind

In His never ending sorrow
His tears rain down from Heaven
To cleanse this earthly home
To wash away our pain and sorrow
And to give us hope once more




Michael Tank
USMC
Scout/Snipers
’69 – ‘72

09/08/06


"Copyright 2006. Michael E. Tank All rights reserved. No part of this document may be copied, faxed, electronically transmitted, or in any other manner duplicated without express written permission of the author."




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