SINKING TO REST - Dick Raymond's Poem for December

                       

           SINKING TO REST 

                     "How sleep the brave, who sink to rest 

                      By all their country's wishes blest."

                                         -- William Collins, "How Sleep the Brave"

There's a little-known enactment over ARIZONA's tomb, 

At Pearl Harbor, when the sun sinks low-- 

Deep down, upon her afterdeck there still is ample room 

For many urns, in elongating row.
      

And there they stand, united with the men who went before, 

Their shipmates of a long-departed day, 

Who perished at the outset of the great Pacific war, 

When Meatballs overcame the Navy gray.
             

The battlewagon shuddered with a monumental blast, 

Then bowed her foremast like a falling tree, 

She settled, proud, undaunted, as the Rising Suns roared past, 

Waving their wings in shameful victory. 
             

But now above her shattered hulk a white pavilion stands, 

Twelve hundred names upon eternal stone, 

Below, the Navy divers place, with reverential hands, 

The shipmates' urns, named, not to be unknown.
             

Eternal Father, grant to them a long and peaceful rest, 

Until the Trumpet calls us all away, 

Forever reunited in the Islands of the Blest, 

In gentle breeze, and never-ending day.

11-4-14

The recently-instituted ceremonial of placing the ashes of deceased survivors of the December 7^th attack, in accordance with their wishes, has been movingly documented on television.