[lit-ideas] Re: Sunday Poem (unusually long, after crabbing, sorry)

who likes death
i wish i could explain the importance of my great uncle asking the butcher of west kilbride (possibly one of two) 
asking on a tuesday that he should hang chops
to be available for weekend consumption

my great uncle took up cooking at age seventy or so
when his wife
well i don't know quite what went wrong with her
he and she had lived the life
after he invaded iraq as a gunnery officer
and was mentioned in dispatches for hitting a bridge
he worked as a marine engineer in trieste
which is a long way from scotland
and was probably then lovely

he is remembered as the second richest fellow in the family
after the guy who played soccer for scotland and whose wife
gave all the money to the old cats' home

not a penny to anyone else

max
the fellow in the artillery
and she had no children

when i was old enough to know who great uncle max was
when i finally took the long slow bus and visited
he was living on his own
with a woman coming in
and he was cooking
knowing enough about the subject to ask the butcher to hang meat
way in advance of need

aged ninety two
i recall he called my father
who then worked for bp
to ask if the latest new issue of shares
were a sound long-term investment
he died at ninety four

my grandfather, his brother
was a power station engineer
and was thus exempt from recruitment
solid in what they called a preferred occupation
protected from the first world war
but
being young
he volunteered

to join the argyll and sutherland highlanders
and was promoted to sergeant
which to those of you who are versed in military history
is like saying he was with the american rangers on D-day
whenever there was an assault to be led
they called on the argylls or the irish or the welsh

my father went through world war two
anxious to join the fleet air arm
and fly swordfish against the enemy
but
instead of chemistry the government required him to study
engineering
or if he failed an exam
to join the infantry
thus he defended edinburgh's chemistry building against the luftwaffe's onslaught 
with a bolt-action rifle
and no bullets

if you want to know why i'm quiet on the subject of war
it's because someone in my family has already invaded iraq
and failed at kut
and we've already been wounded in the big push
and we've already saluted patriotic songs
and somehow lived to ask the butcher to hang our chops

im western nichts neues
surely if any line needed brushing off for another look
this is it

ask to find a war that began on the west coast
i will show you a modoc
or a basque shepherd
or michael munk
or those who think that sustainment is a more apt term
for what will come

but me
i'll off to the end of the valley
to pick up a custom-slaughtered lamb
and hang none of it
i'll freeze everything
chew the chops carefully
and count myself so extremely lucky
to be out on the edge
of where whatever's now at

David Ritchie,
Portland, Oregon


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