12 May 2012

Makes Us Unique

army-barracks43721i

Before-dawn squeaks of sandshoes
greeted most days – and preceding
Reveille in a way we learned best,
early rising habits aid an infinitely
detailed military cleanliness

Peaceful notions of a few moments
extra sleep before the bugle called
stayed pipe dreams; banter, abuse
& pillows flew, perceived as just &
fair rebuke – with due reparations

Beyond tediously polished linoleum
lay another surreal world, the one
of communal shaving, clean finger
nails, shampooed hair combed neat
as a towel-wrapped second nature

Its awakening began in a climb –
became reality in the making of a
few good men to endure the route,
passing their own survival tests,
finding niches to survive in viably

And we attested success, ‘tho if a
few fell away ‘twas theirs to chose
and they never really left; we’re
assembled here at the threshold
of what still makes us unique
© 5 March 2012, I. D. Carswell

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