Dreaming of Okinawa

When the soldier goes to bed at night,

And he closes his eyes.

He dreams of Okinawa,

And all the men that died.

The bullets flying over head,

With the sand at his feet,

He prayed that God would watch over him,

He had promises to keep.

Many soldiers lost their lives.

On one fateful day.

He found God on the Battlefield.

As she shouldered his rifle to pray.

He locked eyes with one maiden.

Before she leaped to her death.

He tried to forget her and move on,

Soon realizing that he never left.

Marching through her jungles,

Blind to her beautiful land.

But soldiers can't see beauty,

When death is close at hand.

When he thinks of Okinawa,

And her beautiful sandy shore.

He wondered if things were different?

Could he have done more?

To save his fallen comrades.

As they died one by one,

Was it worth all the human cost?

For the battle to be won?

His battle wounds have since healed.

But his heart remains on her shore.

The two will always be one in the same,

Okinawa and he, forever more.

© Sonya Dickerson 2015

I wrote this poem to every US and Allied soldier that fought in the Pacific Theatre. The fighting on this little island was ferocious...as it was on Saipan and Iwo Jima. I hope and pray that this world will find peace and war to be something we did in the past. I pray that our children's children can figure out how to live with each other in a global community without having to shed each other's blood.

Historical Fiction: A Delightful Second Choice

...when done correctly.

First hand written accounts of historical events are something that I treasure greatly. There is nothing better than to get an accurate account of an important historical event. I love history just as much as I love writing. Today I found myself giving my daughter a history lesson about WWII and just how it affected the world today. When people say that history is in the past, I give a little chuckle. I could write a book on how that particular war changed the very face of the world and is the backdrop to the current events that are going on today.

Thanks to the ugly side of the Internet, I've been reading for white supremacists that African history is insignificant until the white man came through. I thoroughly reject that argument and began doing research and found it patently false. I turned to Haiti when I learned of the slave rebellion but there is not many witnesses that recorded the history. It was a gruesome history but history nonetheless.

During my research, I learned of a wonderful book, 'Island Beneath The Sea' by a wonderful author Isabel Allende. I am currently reading this book and I can't put it down. I haven't gotten to the Haitian Revolution and am having a fine time reading about the characters. Even though they are fictional, they seem so real and the story is building to a great climax to when the revolution starts.

I highly recommend the story, especially if you are into that time in history. Of if you happen to subscribe to white supremacist ideology....