Another Poem for Veterans Day
When I was a child, I believed that we had a day off from school on Veterans Day because this was also my birthday. But, now, as an adult, this day has a different meaning, because my husband is a veteran.
I’ve written extensively about his service in my books, Stateside (2010) and Dots & Dashes (2017), and now in my in-progress poetry manuscript, Civilians. This latest project explores what it means to a marriage when a service member retires and is no longer defined by a uniform, by a rank. After 20 years of service, my husband retired from the Navy about two years ago, and it was really interesting to observe how this has changed him but also how it has changed us.
So, in honor of this day, I wanted to share a poem from Civilians, an ekphrastic piece about Winslow Homer’s gorgeous painting, “Veteran in a New Field.” You can read the poem here at Consequence, a literary journal that explores the “human consequences and realities of war and geopolitical violence.”