What poems do the dead beneath 
these white stones write? And when 
they recite their verse, do any declaim 
lines about the French men above the ground 
who wash the Cemetery’s marble crosses 

and stars with the same care any would bathe 
a dying mother, or, like me, shave and sponge 
the cooling skin of my father as the banked coals 
that were the furnace of him faded. 

These warrior poets under the soil 
of Colleville-sur-Mer, had no sons 
at their sides when they died, 
no hospice rooms with the sighing 
of aged lovers, the scent of mild soap, 

the lovely splash of washrag 
in warm water, the gentle scrape of razor 
over stubbled face—like my dad had. 
He got all this because 
he did not die on that beach. 

Not even I remember Dad so reverently as 
those 9,387 who rest under those white stones 
are solemnized by French villagers. They gather 
to gild the lettering on their graves, 
to sponge the stones until 

the odes of the buried poet-warriors sing 
their buried bones alive. I will go 
to the place where my dad’s ashes rest, 
and wash his marble marker until 
I conjure his voice back into the world. 

* Publisher’s Notes:

1. Epigraph is from How the French Honor the D-Day Gravestones by Jojo Girard (updated 9 June 2020) at WFGR Radio online.

2. Number of graves, Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial in Colleville-sur-Mer, France: “The cemetery site, at the north end of its half-mile access road, covers 172.5 acres and contains the graves of 9,387 of our military dead, most of whom lost their lives in the D-Day landings and ensuing operations” (American Battle Monuments Commission).

Links retrieved on 30 August 2023.

Richard (Dick) Westheimer

lives in rural southwest Ohio. He is a Rattle Poetry Prize finalist. His poems have recently appeared in Whale Road Review, Innisfree Journal, Gyroscope Review, Banyan Review, Rattle, Ritual Well, One Art, and Cutthroat. SheilaNaGig published his chapbook in December 2022: A Sword in Both Hands, Poems Responding to Russia’s War on Ukraine.

Author’s website: https://dickwestheimer.com/

More on the Web: By, About, and Beyond

⚡ Three Poems by Dick Westheimer in One Art (8 May 2023): “The Word for Darkness Is Light”; “The Companionship of Stars”; and “The Universe and I Are Made from Shattered Space and Time”

⚡ Two Poems by Dick Westheimer in Minyan (Issue 5): “A Teacher in Texas Is Told She Must Present ‘Opposing Perspectives’ on the Holocaust and Follows Orders” and “Fading Light on the Eighth Night”

⚡ My Father Transformed by Dying in Rattle (25 March 2022)