{"id":5379,"date":"2013-08-26T16:11:27","date_gmt":"2013-08-26T16:11:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/solaceinabook.com\/site\/?p=5379"},"modified":"2013-08-26T16:11:27","modified_gmt":"2013-08-26T16:11:27","slug":"i-google-my-name","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/solaceinabook.com\/site\/2013\/08\/i-google-my-name\/","title":{"rendered":"I Google my name"},"content":{"rendered":"

I Google my name <\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

and come up with yours–the exact reverse.<\/p>\n

I think what if we went to school together,<\/p>\n

what confusion there\u2019d be at roll call.<\/p>\n

Ellen, Wade. Wade, Ellen.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

But you\u2019re older, a \u201851 baby,<\/p>\n

a country boy from Rocky Mount, North<\/p>\n

Carolina. And you\u2019re dead,<\/p>\n

killed in action in 1972, when the chopper<\/p>\n

you\u2019re co-piloting on a rescue mission<\/p>\n

is hit by enemy fire and crashes<\/p>\n

into a small island on the Dak Poko River.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

When I think back to 1972<\/p>\n

I see a high school sophomore<\/p>\n

in a Black Watch plaid skirt getting high<\/p>\n

and I am ashamed<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t know enough about the war<\/p>\n

that took your life.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

But when I return to your death date,<\/p>\n

April 23, 1972–<\/p>\n

was it Easter?<\/p>\n

I can picture them stranded, at the water tower,<\/p>\n

and imagine they wanted to signal<\/p>\n

and you, navigating over<\/p>\n

the northwestern edge of the Tanh Canh<\/p>\n

base camp in Kontum Province,<\/p>\n

wanted to save them.<\/p>\n

But the enemy was waiting.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

That day was without resurrection in Florida too<\/p>\n

where I was trying to escape the grief<\/p>\n

of my Mother\u2019s death the month earlier,<\/p>\n

consoling myself by piercing my ears,<\/p>\n

eating peanut M&Ms, sleeping away<\/p>\n

on a pull-out bed, and going<\/p>\n

to a bar for the first time.<\/p>\n

Smokey Robinson played.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I\u2019d like to think my grief was for you too.<\/p>\n

That somehow I knew, oceans away,<\/p>\n

someone I shared something with<\/p>\n

died. But to be real, even now<\/p>\n

I find you only when looking for myself.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I\u2019m still that self-centered sophomore,<\/p>\n

just a different self,<\/p>\n

and you\u2019re dead now for some thirty years.<\/p>\n

Then we were miles apart,<\/p>\n

you weren\u2019t<\/p>\n

even on my radar. But today I found you<\/p>\n

just beyond the periphery,<\/p>\n

and I want to wave, want to say<\/p>\n

I am sorry and ask your forgiveness.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00a9 Ellen Wade Beals, 2004
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

This poem originally appeared on <\/span>C.J. Laity\u2019s website www.chicagopoetry.com<\/a> when it took third place in the Freda Stein Fenster Awards<\/strong><\/a>. It later appeared on the site Ink and Ashes. <\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I Google my name and come up with yours–the exact reverse. I think what if we went to school together, what confusion there\u2019d be at roll call. Ellen, Wade. Wade, Ellen.   But you\u2019re older, a \u201851 baby, a country boy from Rocky Mount, North Carolina. And you\u2019re dead, killed in action in 1972, when […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1465,1466,12,1703,135,1704,1702,13,20,7,16,1699,1705,1701,32],"class_list":{"0":"post-5379","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"tag-c-j-laity","8":"tag-chicagopoetry-com","9":"tag-ellen-wade-beals","10":"tag-frida-stein-fenster","11":"tag-google","12":"tag-identity","13":"tag-ink-and-ashes","14":"tag-poetry","15":"tag-publication","16":"tag-solace","17":"tag-solace-in-so-many-words","18":"tag-un-googled","19":"tag-viet-nam","20":"tag-wade-ellen","21":"tag-weighed-words","22":"entry"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/solaceinabook.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5379","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/solaceinabook.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/solaceinabook.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/solaceinabook.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/solaceinabook.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5379"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/solaceinabook.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5379\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5407,"href":"https:\/\/solaceinabook.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5379\/revisions\/5407"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/solaceinabook.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5379"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/solaceinabook.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5379"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/solaceinabook.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5379"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}