What War Could Never Confiscate

By Camara Gaither

There was a moment
When the last sliver of certainty disappeared.
Though inconsiderate, the clock continued.
Yet the way each moment moved
Changed for us.
Captured… Missing… Unknown.

Suddenly we became so tethered to what time may or may not tell.
We learned there are two kinds of time.
Each carrying a different storyline.
Across the crawl of oceans,
There’s a slow and elusive measure of time within war.
Back home, loved ones carry our own
Time … just for wondering and waiting
As life keeps moving.

Did you become as skilled at counting as us?
We’ve made math of ambivalent birthdays and hollow holidays.
We’ve counted the inches children have grown
And the seconds since you’ve been home.
Have you counted moons and suns?
Footsteps beyond the door, taps on the wall?

Inside of silence,
What has been your food?
Crumbs and imaginary meals?
Have you been sustained by prayers,
By cherished memories? By borrowed books?
We’ve imagined you’ve made a universe of your own mind.
Composing letters to those you love,
Without paper or pen.
Finding a language that war cannot confiscate,
Willing your words to find us across impossible distances.

We learned there are also two kinds of space.
There is the space you inhabit
And the space that your absence inhales.
We’ve wondered what places have held you.
A place unnamed,
A concrete corridor? A rusted floor?
A hidden field?
We’ve wished for a comrade’s arms to hold you.
We’ve prayed for a kind civilian in a quiet village
To see your humanity.

Here at home, your absence has become its own mass and volume.
It’s filled that empty chair, our repeated prayers,
The vacant part of the bed,
The words left unsaid.

Life has left us inside strange spaces
Some of us live in the blurry threshold between spouse and widow,
Unable to fully hope, unable to fully mourn you.

Some of us children of prisoners of war,
Still wondering what wounds and miracles
Shaped the parent who came home,
Watching your resilience rise beside your wreckage.

We’ve learned the dance
That grief and hope have with one another
To make room for such a coexistence.

We’ve learned the meaning made from
Echoing your name,
From seeing the shape of your sacrifice.
To hold it like an heirloom,
Passed from family to community,
Speaking your story,
Making sure you don’t ever become an unopened archive.

Have you wondered where we keep finding you?
In bravery that bears your likeness,
In the sound of your laugh,
As we savor every photograph,
In your gestures traveling through generations,
In a pride of loving you,
Someone who dared
To be a story beyond themselves.

With the time we are still tethered to,
Whatever it may or may not tell,
We still search
For you missing in action.
We still honor
You who returned from captivity.
We still carry
Not only what you endured,
But all the parts of you that war
Could never confiscate.