"Bestowed With A Name"
By Joseph Ridgway
JOEY, JOEY, JOEYEEEEEE!
Eventually, a trifling evolution to JOE.
White to beige, accompanied
with the fanfare of weed growth.
JOSEPH! A father’s rebuke.
GIUSEPPE! The eternal welcome of my Italian grandparents.
A plebeian name at best, I was
left naked, with no incipient distinctness.
A lifetime later, and now, myself
a grandfather, sitting at my hearthstone.
Sifting through family relics, when
an ancient childish concern returned home.
The photographs, yellowed and twisted;
his downed bomber under a smoke-covered dismal sky.
The plane partly submerged under
the black scorched earth of Iwo Jima.
Holding in my hands his posthumously awarded
purple heart, earned before my birth.
A twenty-something war hero, my
mother’s older brother, my uncle JOE.
Bestowed with a name.
A gift of hidden meaning?
A portent of fame?
A golden wing for flying?
Or just an arrow to aim?
An arrow to aim.
Eventually, a trifling evolution to JOE.
White to beige, accompanied
with the fanfare of weed growth.
JOSEPH! A father’s rebuke.
GIUSEPPE! The eternal welcome of my Italian grandparents.
A plebeian name at best, I was
left naked, with no incipient distinctness.
A lifetime later, and now, myself
a grandfather, sitting at my hearthstone.
Sifting through family relics, when
an ancient childish concern returned home.
The photographs, yellowed and twisted;
his downed bomber under a smoke-covered dismal sky.
The plane partly submerged under
the black scorched earth of Iwo Jima.
Holding in my hands his posthumously awarded
purple heart, earned before my birth.
A twenty-something war hero, my
mother’s older brother, my uncle JOE.
Bestowed with a name.
A gift of hidden meaning?
A portent of fame?
A golden wing for flying?
Or just an arrow to aim?
An arrow to aim.
Author’s Note:
This poem was inspired by the short heroic life and times of my mother’s older brother, Joseph Bottalico, a B25 bomber pilot who was killed on Iwo Jima during World War II. He was also my namesake, as the poem details, much to my youthful chagrin. This poem was nominated for a 2019 Pushcart Prize by virtue of its Honorable Mention in the Arizona Authors’ Association 2018 International Literary Contest and was first published in the 2019 Arizona literary Magazine.
This poem was inspired by the short heroic life and times of my mother’s older brother, Joseph Bottalico, a B25 bomber pilot who was killed on Iwo Jima during World War II. He was also my namesake, as the poem details, much to my youthful chagrin. This poem was nominated for a 2019 Pushcart Prize by virtue of its Honorable Mention in the Arizona Authors’ Association 2018 International Literary Contest and was first published in the 2019 Arizona literary Magazine.