Lannie

Radicalization 

john clare stokes

He was a quiet little boy

He loved to go fishing

On Ocean Pond

Hunting at the meat stand

In the Osceola

We thought him dyslectic

Taking him to the renown

Dr Levinson in New York

He saw lady liberty

He saw the twin towers

We took him to Alaska

He saw Mt McKinley

Made snow angels 

Stood beside a stuffed grizzly

We look back for any sign

The day on the Camp Street

Porch his will wouldn't break?

The Trooper window he kicked out?

Skipping the afternoon of Middle School?

He graduated in the usual way

The same way we did

Surrounded by those we 

Would never see again

He had a strong desire for mission

We sent him to Papua to

Spend a month with the

Wano tribe

He returned with a handmade 

Bow and arrows the tribesmen made for him

He still smarted from the nose

piercing without antithesis 

Two naked Wano men holding him

A fireman since his pappa would take him to the station

The surfer boy proudly wore

His overcoat and boots

The day he married standing in the Santa Fe river

I recalled the time in this very spot

He was but a baby in the boat

The shear pin on the propeller

Was broke

And I had to pull him and his mother back to this landing

Never thinking this would be

His point of no return

And thus the little Lannie

With the great smile

Has taken upon his shoulders

The weight of isolation 

The burden of silence

The promise of not honoring

The mother and father

The radicalization

Of a life.

First canoe trip

Okeefenokee Swamp

Written May 1, 2013

He will return?