This is a big poem I've been thinking about for years. I spent months thinking about how to write it, about my uncle coding two Bibles with locations to reveal where he was assigned in WWII.
I got an idea a few days ago. In listing the countries and books of the Bible, I needed to write this in short lines and short stanzas. Does this style work? (I put this into two columns on my page, so it fits on one page.)
Bible Study for War
Two Bibles side by side on the table.
Two Bibles, coded the same.
One stays home. One went to war.
At the family table, he writes
countries in the bottom margins,
on the first pages of the books.
Countries
where he might be sent.
Italy – Galatians
France – Corinthians
Australia – St. Mark
He makes lists:
Old Testament
New Testament.
Iceland – Philippians
South America – Timothy
Egypt – Ephesians
He leaves in a week.
Mail will be censored.
Agrihan – 1st Samuel
Pacific – Jonah
Hawaii – Thessalonians
Two Bibles, coded the same.
One stays home. One went to war.
Where he is going is classified.
What he is doing is top secret.
Rota – Leviticus
Tokyo – Ezra
Osaka – Psalms
He does not go to Europe,
assigned to the third reconnaissance unit
in the Pacific.
China – St. John
Wake Island – Zechariah
South Sea Islands – Acts
He writes home via V Mail,
talks about Exodus and Numbers.
His mother and father learn where he is
when they read their Bible.
Nagoya – Esther
Korea – Proverbs
Iwo Jima – Kings
Two Bibles, coded the same.
One stays home. One went to war.
Crouched in the nose of a B29,
he photographs locations over Japan.
He draws a map of Nagoya.
Guam – Genesis
Saipan – Exodus
Tinian – Numbers
How many missions?
South Sea Islands. Saipan.
How many times does he return to Tinian?
Until he doesn’t.
Valentine’s Day, 1945.
The signal was lost.
The plane of eight never found.
Last takeoff from the Mariana Islands,
the government said.
His parents never knew for sure.
Two Bibles side by side on the table.
Two Bibles, coded the same.
The Bible that went to war came home.
The soldier did not.
Annette Langlois Grunseth
Note: The smaller Bible that went to war belonged to my grandfather, 1st Lt. Ingvald G. Bergh, D.R.C., who carried it during WWI. He later gave it to his son, Richard Bergh, for WWII.
