Night Watch
Monkey Mt.
On this height no eagle strains
In a standard metaphor
Against the fall of night.
These are the hills of Cain;
His exiled crime courses
Our hill, though only kites
Trace stream water down from the ruined
Springs. Game paths are
highways, the junctions boulder cleated
By roots, are guardposts, new
To tactics. At evening when haze
Rises and dim rain meets
Scrub to replenish the springs
Darkness forces me to knife
My companions the red
Earth and low chattery’s
In the midst of such life
Why must I be so dead.
by Lance Cpl. Jim Thomas, Third Battalion, Third Marines and former MSU student. While in Vietnam, Thomas wrote frequently for the campus underground newspaper, “The Paper”. This poem was published on October 13, 1966. Two weeks later Thomas was killed in action.
