Hopscotch Man / What Does He See

Hopscotching over the sidewalks in the town where I live,
A Vietnam vet, who is home, but can never be?

I was a hippie when he went to war. I marched around Dow Chemical
and protested and more, because they made napalm.
I wore wooden beads and headbands and rapped all night about Ghandi’s Peace.

He was a medic on the Demilitarized Zone.
What did he see? Small town boy. Middle class soldier.
What did he see?

I was graduated from college. He was discharged from war.
I found jobs, had paddy-cakes that loved me and a lover that didn’t.
He started walking.

I joined things, cleaned things, restored things. He kept on walking.
Everyday. Up and down the main street in the town where I live.
I had funerals and parties. Blue skies and sunsets. Got fat and thin and fat and thin
and fat again.

I wrote down every little thing I ever felt.
I questioned everything. Thought everything. Ignored everything. Faced everything
I cried for everything. Celebrated everything. Remembered everything.
then forgot everything.

He kept on walking. Day after day. Month after month Year after year. Decade after decade.

After decade.

I saw him again on Veteran's Day.
This small town boy. This middle class soldier.
What’s he doing? What does he see?

Shadows of his lifetime? Or shadows of one day of gore?
He has graying long hair down to his waist. Like a Friar Tuck gone amok.
He has a graying long beard, down to his waist. And he sweeps a white cane back and forth,
tap tapping as he walks
and then his feet start tip-toeing here. Sidestepping there. Hopscotching.

What does he see?
A glorious world? Does he dance the jig to commemorate the joys of life?
Or is he still in the demilitarized zone.

What does he hop over. What does he avoid?

What does he see? Step on the wrong part and you break your mother's. . .

My God.
My heart.