Green leaves upon the summer trees
gently waving summer breeze.
Tis a vibrant park outside the home,
a hundred vets, yet he's all alone.
Oh surely friends will wave and smile
though blind, they are, to the fear/denial.
Tis safer that it's kept this way,
for the bench is where he came to stay.
Every day at half passed one,
the healing warmth of Florida's sun.
All is well till his face droops down
to see the leaves his eyes have found.

Green leaves scattered upon the ground,
fallen amidst the thrashing sounds
of children playing hide and seek
escaping capture with shrills and shrieks.
Their favorites spots are held up high,
hidden from all the passersby.
But when they are found, the leaves are torn
from the silence, battle's born.

Green leaves hiding Charlie's face.
While marching back from tour, to base.
Ambushed! - from the hills beside
no coverage along the road to hide.
Twas no matter, fate's choice was made
the heavens rained down green grenades.
Shattered ribs and blown out hearts
helmets and skulls all mashed apart.
Three hundred teenagers ran away,
only forty saw another day.

His horror'd, tear filled eyes revealed
Green issued corpses cast round the field.
Blood poured out his punctured hand,
domestic blood in a foreign land.
Friends no longer could greet his face
their frozen eyes now aimed at space.
Soon the choppers would come collect
their voided lives, like canceled checks.

Green blankets, cover, bodies dead
upon the grass now spattered red.
coptor'd off in a violent breeze
above the swaying, sorrowed trees.

The man collapses with tears and screams
this nightmare fills his days AND dreams.
Collapses from the the wooden bench
Upon the ground now safe, entrenched.
Like clockwork, now, the nurse arrives
the daily trip to bring him back inside
to save him from the way he grieves
memories of green fallen leaves.