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Bill Glose Theories of Flight and Forbearance poetr y Into the valley of Death rode the six hundred --Alfred, Lord Tennyson from "The Charge of the Light Brigade" In the rumbling gloom of a Starlifter's belly, they sit shoulder to shoulder in cupped mesh of bench seats, jostling sideways in sync with the juddering plane as if their mass was one breathing body, a desert snake sidewinding over sand. Parachutes press them into heavy rucks balanced on laps. Laden like mules and wedged tight as an M4's detent pin, bodies interlock like Spartan hoplites at Thermopylae, like cavalry at Balaclava, like Pickett's boys racing toward the low stone wall on Cemetery Ridge. Arrowing toward uncertain futures, paratroopers ponder drop zone assembly areas studied from sand tables, markered on maps whose contour lines mimic ripples on a pond. Or else they empty minds like a guru, aware only of the living moment, serenity coming like sleep without dreams. Flecked with sweat, grease-painted faces Fa l l 2 016 / T HE MIS SOURI RE V IE W 9 are stoic as marble busts of Plato or Socrates. They, too, know the value of asking why, but SOP dictates silence.
The Missouri Review – University of Missouri
Published: Oct 2, 2016
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