He's a little crookeder now
than he was in the old days,
but still he makes the trek,
without fail, and without complaint .
and he lays down the flowers
beside the cold gray stone,
uninhabited and unmarked,
but no less a throne.
For the feelings inspired
come not from the words on the side
a name not engraved,
doesn't diminish the pride.
He'd lost someone out there
in that field of blood and black
and though he wasn't buried here,
he never did come back.
and he cries for the son he lost
and all he tried to do,
he mourns for the child that left him,
and the man he never knew.
He kneels in the dirt at the foot of this square,
and he folds his wrinkled weathered hands,
hoping his prayers make their way to his son,
that brave little soldier man.
So he comes here every day,
to honor every man,
hoping one day he'll get to hug that boy,
and proudly shake that man's hand.
