Dick Raymond's December Poem

 December 2021 Pome

A HYMN FOR EIGHTY YEARS
Pearl Harbor, T.H., 7 December 1941

Three generations now have slipped
So silently away--
The crewmen in their iron crypt
Await a better day,
As, one by one, or two by two,
Each loved shipmate returns
To join that ever-patient crew,
In rows of close-ranked urns.

Bugler, sound Taps! Ring out eight bells,
For sailors seen no more--
Each drop of oil, in rising, tells
Of lives who paid the score,
In ever-widening rainbow-rings,
As to the listening ear
A sweet voice out of heaven sings
To heroes buried here.

2-26-21

* For several years now, a number of the few surviving crewmen from the battleship USS Arizona, sunk at her moorings on 7 December 1941, chose to have their ashes placed by divers on the after deck, six fathoms below. As of 2020, the solemn ceremonies ended, with interment of the last remaining man.