‘The Ballad of the Ghost Mountain Boys’: A Poem by Rachel Lott

The Ballad of the Ghost Mountain Boys

—to the “Ghost Mountain Boys” of World War II—
especially the Iowa farm boy who was my grandfather.

Prologue

There was a day that unawares
awoke the world from sleep
and sent it witless out to fight
with devils in the deep.

There was a day the sun rose red
across a sickly east,
and all the ghosts of hell made war
on oceans named for peace.

The sun rose red, and where it rose
the greed of hell rose farther.
It grasped at every eastern shore:
the first to fall, Pearl Harbor.

The sun rose red. The ocean’s pearls
lay pallid in its beams:
hapless Burma, little Guam,
the priceless Philippines.

The sun rose red. The ocean’s pearls
turned crimson in its shade,
until Australia looked alone
across the waters red with foam
and knew it needed aid.

A single island shaded it
from those red-rising hosts:
a no man’s land, a devils’ land,
with mountains green as ghosts.

Part I: The Summons

In Iowa the corn was gone.
The fields were pale as snow
when in Bachelor’s Paradise
the summons came to go.

The bachelor was the farmer’s son.
He’d been as well content
with all the folks and cows at home.
But when he heard, he went.

He was of the humble sort—
his people were so poor
and not the type to cast their pearls
before the swine of war—

but other things than paradise
were dear to them and him.
They only hoped him back that year
to bring the harvest in.

Part II: The Letters

In Iowa, in Iowa,
the stocks go up & down,
the corn is short, the corn is tall,
the seed’s still in the ground,

and some are out and some are in,
and few can keep their poise,
but everyone awaits the mail
for letters from the boys.

In Iowa they do not write
of barns burned down to rubble
(for in Iowa they know
a man is born to trouble)

nor of the women with their sons
who bear a heavy cross
(for in Iowa they know
a woman’s born to loss)

but of the cows and sheep and ducks
and what the corn is doing,
and every farmer’s son writes back
of chow and chocolate pudding,

but not about the sickly beach
uneasily in sight
with fungus clinging to the trees
in greens that glow by night.

The brass had met with paper maps
(sometimes not even these)
and charted out a paper plan
through paper swamps and trees—

not knowing of the sucking mud,
the scythes of razor grass,
the ridges scarred with hogback tracks
the natives would not pass,

the biting of the thousand things
that swarm from head to heel,
the shivers of malaria,
the ulcers that don’t heal.

All this and more—for need is need,
though hell be so much hell—
the brass said “Do.” The soldiers did.
The farmer’s son as well.

And in between he briefly writes,
when mail gets through again,
that he is well, and all is right,
though he can’t make it homeward, quite,
to bring the harvest in.

Part III: The Battle

Down from the mountain paths
they’d said no man could pass,
down from the razorbacks
the soldiers came at last.

Down to a crimson foe
more keen to die than flee,
down through infernos of mud
they battled for the sea.

Themselves more ghosts than men
from hells no man had guessed,
the boys who looked and lived to tell
on the faces of devils, sick with hell,
laid all their foes to rest.

Themselves more men than ghosts
as the hosts of the red sun fled:
they stopped the rise of the crimson swell
on the shores of the land at the doors of hell,
and laid to rest the dead.

Epilogue

In Iowa the corn was young,
the fields had flooded twice
when the farmer’s son came home
to Bachelor’s Paradise.

He watched the cornrows grow again
with what the mud had hid.
He met a woman with a son.
He said, “I do,” and did.

In Iowa, in Iowa,
the ears are thin or fat,
the corn is short, the corn is tall,
the wind is where it’s at,

and some are up, and some are down,
as all will be again,
but still my humble people work
to bring the harvest in.

And far away, from western shores
to islands in the east,
where they have laid their labors by,
my people, humble people lie.
There may they rest in peace

until a harvest day arrives
the angels work for too—
until a higher voice than theirs,
waking the world at unawares,
says “Rise up,” and they do.

Rachel A. Lott holds a PhD in medieval philosophy from the University of Toronto. As an online tutor for gifted children, she leads group sessions and 1:1 advanced tutorials in language arts, Latin, logic, and math. Her work has appeared in First Things, Christian Century, America Magazine, Classical Outlook, New Verse Review, and the children’s magazine Cricket.