Alfred A. Duckett

Sonnet

Where are we to go when this is done?
Will we slip into old, accustomed ways,
finding remembered notches, one by one?
Thrashing a hapless way through a quickening haze?

Who is to know us when the end has come?
Old friends and families, but could we be
strange to the sight and stricken dumb
at visions of some pulsing memory?

Who will love us for what we used to be
who now are what we are, bitter cold?
Who is to nurse us with swift subtlety
back to the warm and feeling human fold?

Where are we to go when this is through?
We are the war-born. What are we to do?

Alfred A. Duckett is the african-american writer pictured above. He wrote the aforementioned poem, Sonnet. I had to share this poem because of its haunting poignancy. I have the tendency to write poetry that catches you in the beginning and works hard to keep the imagery in your mind since your attention has been snagged but this poem is a the reverse. I love the way he starts off gently and builds the crescendo until the end. The last line makes you want to sob for the lonely lost people in the poem. They can be your next door neighbor, survivor of the Haulocast,