BATTLE CRY

MilitaryWeek ^ | May 26, 2005 | Kay Day

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BATTLE CRY

By Kay Day

for W. Thomas Smith, Jr.

He thought he heard it first in the oak trees, within boughs he chose for lookouts, sturdy perches where he spotted enemy encroaching fields of peanuts or cotton: fierce Hessians with scraggly beards and beefy arms, earnest Yankees in blue, Braves in feathers and paint, his enemy shaped in tales he’d heard or read.

He heard it again in the water, pulling him along the rivulets where he dodged arrows and musket balls, a call urging attack, defend. The sound was the sweetest he’d known since he was an infant drooling as his mother crooned. And it stayed with him through pine cone missiles and ramshackle forts, battles alongside barefoot friends, with and against those friends, depending on sides determined by drawing straws. He was a boy in the lap of a calling.

He heard the sounds again on the evening news, an echo in the single word freedom, and the melody rendered by Decatur’s maxim, “My country, right or wrong.” His song grew a march, and soon he knew the grunt and sweat, real bullets slicing air above his head. He accepted his mother might one day greet a box on a tarmac, flag enfolding him like a favorite blanket.

He thought he’d heard it first in Southern pine, until he dealt war as a man. Then he knew. He’d heard his first battle cry resounding in the lullaby he heard Mother sing as he took shape in her womb.

--- Author-poet Kay Day writes for several national literary magazines. She is the recipient of numerous literary awards, including the Carrie Allen McCray Award for Poetry, two Byline Literary Awards, and a Florida Times-Union fiction award. Her work has been featured on National Public Radio. Day’s Battle Cry was inspired by the work of – and written for – W. Thomas Smith Jr.

© 2005 Kay Day