The Tectonic Tides

The brass casing hits the dirt, still smoking.

Before that, the heavy recoil against the shoulder.

Before that, the breath held in the Riyadh dark.

Tomorrow, I will push Jack and Isaac on the swings,

listening to the rusted chains clatter like tank treads,

watching Julian leap from the highest arc.

They are flying. I have already watched them land.

The sawdust settles on the cedar planks.

I am measuring the angles for the wall, fitting the wood together.

Before that, the heat radiating off a distant tarmac,

a dry wind that cracked the lips and tested the spirit.

The wood here in Ocoee smells like cedar and rain.

The memory smells of jet fuel and sand.

Frances touches my shoulder. The coffee is hot.

It is a quiet, sunlit morning.

Yet she is also standing in a hallway thirty years ago,

holding a telephone to her ear in the dead of night,

praying the heavy knock at the front door never comes.

The peace we sit in now is built on the waiting she survived then.

My fingers tap the keyboard.

Sarah’s name appears on the screen. The mission is ending.

But I am just now plotting the beginning.

The ink hasn't dried on the manuscript, yet the thriller is already bound on a shelf.

I am a young squad leader, learning the brutal tradecraft of survival,

ignorant that these tactics will one day become the fiction I invent.

Sean stands rigid, adjusting his cover.

Amanda raises her right hand, swearing the oath.

I look at my grown children in their uniforms,

but my own hand is raised; I am young,

promising my life to a world I haven't yet seen.

The legacy echoes long before the first word is spoken.

Roxy and Jack sleep in the sunlight pooling on the rug.

The dogs do not know about time.

They do not know about the heavy rucksack sitting in the closet,

or the thirty years of jumpmaster commands echoing in the void.

They only know the present warmth.

I reach down to scratch behind their ears, but I am simultaneously standing in front of a formation,

the Big Red One patch sharp on my shoulder,

calling a battalion to attention.

The green light flashes in the belly of the aircraft.

The wind roars over the drop zone.

I step out into the black night.

I am walking along the shoreline at Pensacola Beach.

The Gulf water washes over my bare feet, pulling the sand away.

I drop the heavy green rucksack in the foyer.

Before that, the long transport flight across the ocean.

Before that, the perimeter watch.

Before that, the kiss goodbye.

Time is not a march. It is not a steady, rhythmic cadence.

It is the sudden, violent snap of a static line.

It is the fireworks exploding over the Magic Kingdom while a mortar shell echoes in a distant desert.

It is the end of the mission, right beside the beginning.

It is arriving safely home, long before you ever had to leave.