On a still September afternoon
an old woman pulls up tripod poles
tightly roped in dried green-bean 
vines. She rakes the small garden plot
and draws two furrows with a finger. 

From a packet opened in the spring
she pinches out some lettuce seeds
small as course-ground pepper flakes,
sliding her thumb to slowly sow best
wishes for crisp salad through the fall.

Surrounded by small white butterflies 
running silent-movie errands, she
stands to stretch her back, the rhythmic 
tamps her hand just made over each 
new row the only sounds she’d heard.

Songbird nesting music gone, cicada choir
screeching done, crickets silent in bright sun,
she looks at hilltop trees, probing green for
any branch already yellow, red, or brown.
                        

Around 1985, heading back to National Airport, 
I found my way to The Wall. Entering its stone 
stillness, I floated with the raft of visitors 
scanning dense petroglyphs on steep black cliffs.
A familiar name emerged, starting with Walter, but
what came to mind was Wally – big guy, big, friendly 
face, big, bushy eyebrows and warm, bellowing voice.
Was this that student from Ellsworth College?

I taught there a couple years, then lost touch. When 
my plane landed, the last name was forgotten, but not 
the face or the laugh. I vowed to rummage around
for old yearbooks and their Walters, but never did.

When I opened the old cedar chest this morning,
I came across the 1966 “Lauream.” Sophomore 
Walter Nutt is on page 23. That affable face also
gazes from its internet post of Vietnam casualties. 

In the remembrances, a buddy had worried about
Wally, a medic who would not carry a weapon.
Another buddy said Wally spoke of going home to
his wife and baby daughter in Des Moines. He was 22.

The medal citation states four comrades fell wounded 
nearby. Under fire, Walter Lee Nutt III treated two and
was killed moving toward the third. I saw your name
carved in stone, Wally. I’m sorry. You should be 70 now.