For a saving grace, we didn't see our dead,
Who rarely bothered coming home to die But simply stayed away out there In the clean war, the war in the air.
Seldom the ghosts come back bearing their tales Of hitting the earth, the incompressible sea,
But stayed up there in the relative wind,
Shades fading in the mind,
Who had no graves but only epitaphs Where never so many spoke for never so few:
Per ardua, said the partisans of Mars,
Per aspera, to the stars.
That was the good war, the war we won As if there was no death, for goodness's sake.
With the help of the losers we left out there In the air, in the empty air.
Howard Nemerov was born on February 29th, 1920 in New York.
He died of cancer at his home in University City,
Missouri on July 5th 1991.
