Recall

This is for my Naval Communications Station Cam Ranh Bay Vietnam brothers.

The memories that long endure
gain worth in special ways,

though some are sharp and some obscure,
or lost in timeless haze.

The images of brothers lost,
of pain, of joy and tears,
are funds accrued to pay a cost
that's decades in arrears.

So share your tales of distant youth,
exotic Asian lands,
when fate was held by older truths
and hearts in younger hands.

Recall the storm, recall the rain,
remember every brother--
as you recall a faded name,
then I'll recall another.

~ Dean Neighbors~ June 20, 2013

Garden Variety

She isn’t a garden tomato
nor cantaloupe, onion or beet.
She doesn’t allow much debate. Oh,
she’s so undeniably sweet.

Pragmatically speaking, she doesn’t
give looking behind her a whirl.
She isn’t, most certainly wasn’t,
a garden variety girl.