THE BOY BESIDE THE GUARD

Boutwell Jones

Photo taken by Mr. Scott Smith (Marine)

In sixth grade,
I stood beside a soldier
with my whole life still ahead of me.

Behind us,
a man whose name
had not come home.

I had come up from south Georgia,
where people asked who your people were.
Where a last name could tell you
which road to turn down,
which porch would take you in.

Here was someone
we could not call by name.

And still,
a place was kept.
Flowers were laid.
A soldier walked his measured steps.

Twenty-one.
Then the waiting.
Then the turning back.

There are things a boy can witness
that take a man years to understand.

I look at this photograph now
and think of the mother
who once knew that soldier
by his footsteps.

The voice she would have recognized
from another room.

Whatever the war took,
it could not make him
a stranger to her.

Or to God.

The photograph has faded.
I have grown older
than that boy could imagine.

At Arlington,
the watch continues.

Lord, receive the ones
we could not bring home by name.

And keep something of that quiet
in the boy who got to leave.

— Boutwell Jones
redclaygospel.com