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Destroyer of Paradise (poem)

By Allen L. Meece

At the Hukilau Restaurant there's a chart
laminated to the top of the table
with depths and altitudes of lovely Pearl Harbor.
I remember 1964 and the day we went in.

Our "ocean greyhound" entered the garden
with twenty-two foot-long naval guns pointing straight ahead
to misty mountain rain forest rising from the sea bed.
Hawaii. DD-950. On her way to war.

Beside the sunken battleship "Arizona" we glide.
BB-39, that impressive monument to hate
where twenty-three years before;
two thousand sailors met their fate all on a Sunday morning.

My thoughts go winging away
like the soft white clouds that drifted overhead that day
my "General Purpose Destroyer" entered
Pearl Harbor bay.

Three sailors rented a jeep and around Oahu, sped.
Then set sail for Viet Nam:
Followed, where The President led;
killed, whom The Capitalist said.

Young man do listen and listen with your head:
When you're in love with the living,
to live without regret,
let the dead-in-spirit bury their dead.