HAIKU (Vet)

Boy with the Carbine/
photo on parent's dresser/
two score years past.

(c) TPuma/MMXI

HAIKU (TFP/TSE)

My friends come-and-go/
all I have left is David/
Michael Angelo.

(c)T.Puma/MMXI

A BOY'S JOURNEY (Separation-Trials-Return)

A BOY’S JOURNEY
Separation-Trials-Return

“This is what Joyce called the monomyth: an archetypal story that springs from the collective unconscious. Its motifs can appear not only in myth and literature, but, if you are sensitive to it, in the working out of the plot of your own life. The basic story of the hero journey involves giving up where you are, going into the realm of adventure, coming to some kind of symbolically rendered realization, and then returning to the field of normal life."

Joseph Campbell, Pathways to Bliss
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I crossed the ocean,
as a boy to do or die.
Old World, old war paths.

I crossed the threshold,
a civilian to soldier,
question what I left.

I crossed my parents,
unsure of my lone journey.
A final farewell?

I crossed Catholic,
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,
with me, in peril.

I crossed my sergeant,
nasty bastard with three stripes.
“Private”, forever.

I crossed Happy guys,
no courage to join that group.
They made me anxious.

I crossed GI bars:
nose/jaw broke, blackened eyes.
Tough guy now mellowed.

I crossed twenty-one,
older and wiser, maybe;
weary of Army.

I crossed Captain John,
obligatory salute.
“Good-luck, son.” “Thanks sir.”

I crossed the ocean,
a young man to live and thrive,
New World, new path ways.

© T.Puma/MMXI