Camp Howze, Texas 1944

Jan Seale

June 16, 2021

Dad said sit still and do not stare.

The flag drooped for planes gone down.

They sang, “Over there. Over there.”

Five years old, in a father’s care,

I promised not to make a sound.

Dad said sit still and do not stare.

He’d volunteered to come declare

the Gospel to these war zone bound.

They sang, “Over there. Over there.”

The pews were hard. The windows’ glare

showed green soldiers all around. 

Dad said sit still and do not stare.

I swung my legs and twirled my hair,

thought of ice cream back in town.

They sang, “Over there. Over there.”

These boy-men were singing prayer

with a week to go and then outbound.

Dad said sit still and do not stare.

They sang, “Over there. Over there.”

Jan Seale, the 2012 Texas Poet Laureate, lives in Texas on the U.S.-Mexican border. She has held a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in poetry and has served as a Humanities Scholar for Humanities Texas. Her latest book of poetry is PARTICULARS: poems of smallness, published by Lamar University Literary Press.