Have You Ever?

Have you ever seen a meteorite at midnight

blazing to the ground

in a flash of lightening

that illuminates the entire sky?

Have you ever been days in the well deck

of a transport ship

tossed like a toy by 200 foot waves

with no where else to go?

Have you ever run through a burning building?

Have you ever stood on a night firing line, abreast of sixteen tanks

all of their guns firing at the same time?

Have you ever climbed a mountain in Japan

and seen the oceans both east and west beyond an vast sea of blue clouds?

Have you ever listened to your sargeant dying on the field radio

being unable to do anything for them?

Have you ever had to pull your loader from beneath a fallen tank?

Have you ever swum naked in an irrigation canal in the moonlight

or danced about a burning fire?

Have you ever listened to the sounds of the waves clapping on the soft beach

at midnight or have you ever watched an afternoon squall come

across the Indian ocean?

Have you ever been in a small sampan with an old Chinese uncle and a bunch

of children, racing across the channel to beat an oncoming ferry boat?

Have you ever had thanksgiving dinner with a homeless family in a hotel room

or spent days and nights dripping wet in the habu?

Have you ever climbed the high Sierra mountains by yourself, struggling along

cliff edges of a thousand feet, or have you ever come nose to nose with

a wild, hungry bear?

Have you ever been in the middle of a blazing desert, as silent and still as can be

sharing you water with a swarm of honey bees?

Have you ever been awakened by a building shaking in an earthquake and about

to fall?

Have you ever had to run from a black tornado cloud, with the wind blowing

everything in its path?

Have you ever seen a solitary island in the middle of a vast blue Pacific ocean?

Have you eve watched men walk upon the moon on television?

In my life, these things have I seen, and more.

They were only events passing by me, like a traveler on a train.

They are a small part of me, and I am a small part of the whole.

All these things pale in importance, compared to seeing my child's bloody body

emerge screaming from her mother's womb.