My senior year of high school, I encountered an English teacher that revolutionized my love for poetry. Mr. Kline was not your average English teacher. He was ex army, solidly built, wore flannel and jeans, and dipped during class when he tried to quit smoking. He cussed and regularly told us the harsh realities of life. He never got his board certification because he wasn’t conventional and didn’t fit into the box. He had a passion for Shakespeare and we would spend weeks analyzing his writings and the beauty of how he articulated every word.

One day he decided he wanted us to begin writing poetry. We had spent a month analyzing poetry, some of his own, and deciphering language and meaning. He told us to pick a moment in our lives, a single moment, and write a paragraph about it. I had one moment that was fresh in my mind, my brothers second deployment. When he deployed the first time, we didn’t get to see him off because he was in New York. I was 14 at the time and was still really naive to what was happening. For the second deployment, he was a short six hour drive away and we went as a family to Ft. Bliss. I was 18 now and very aware of what a deployment meant. I knew that I could possibly be saying good bye to my big brother forever.

I wrote this all into a paragraph and turned it in. As he handed back our assignments, I didn’t get mine back. He stood in front of the class and asked if he could read my paragraph. I reluctantly shook my head yes and tried to keep from crying as he read it aloud. He choked up as he read and explained that he could feel my emotion through my words. His son had just enlisted and he too was feeling the fear of what deployment meant.

Mr. Kline helped me develop this poem. He suggested a song called Over There by Chris Gerolmo and said it would be perfect to work the lyrics into my poem. I’ve worked on this poem periodically over the last decade. Every time I thought of it, I’d pull it out and add to it or tweak it. Today I decided that I think it’s ready for sharing. I’m sure I’ll come back to it again, but for now, here it is.

Over There

The air was stifling as we stepped through the doors to the gymnasium

The day is coming

Drums are drumming

Holding my breath as if maybe plans would change if they saw everyone’s silent uneasiness

If you know one say a prayer

Masses of civilians with clear cut paths of tears running down their cheeks

There’s a Mother crying

Father’s sighing

Soldiers bury their heartache underneath battle ready war faces

War is in the air

An order is given to load up and the panic begins to set in

Trains filling up with boys

Who have left their favorite toys

Heart rates rise as we try to compose ourselves over goodbyes

They’re going over there

We embrace and whisper a prayer hoping it will not be the last time

Over there

Someone has to die

And hope begins to dissipate as the distance between us grows

It’s not our job to reason why

We drive home in silence, collectively pretending this is a short vacation and not a permanent death sentence.

Someone has to die

Over there