Almost 5 decades after his war experience Denny Sedlack uncovers “a crack in the on-guard” in this poem, There Is A Place.

There Is A Place

There is a place.
A moment.
I am caught off guard.
I experience; a felt-sense, a thought, a feeling.
Maybe I’m walking.
I am paused.
Like a spring ray of sunshine through early green shaded and lit tree leaves catches my attention.
An intense sense of beauty or joy.
Maybe I’m caught in a fog, a day dream, a stupor.
The ‘ah ha’ happens.
Then a thought from somewhere, not me thinking, happens.
‘What’s so’ is revealed.
Or, I’m touched.
Or, I touch.
Not an actual physical touching, but a felt warmth that ever so lightly gets my attention.
I orient towards.
Or, a sense of cold with a shudder to pull away from.
Maybe a whole string of feelings or thoughts occur.
I am pulled into reverie.
Oft the intensity is so great I must pull back or I’ll loose myself.
I experience a break from my habitual thinking, my attraction-avoidance toward experience.
I am freshly on the spot, in the moment, without baggage.
Curiosity.
I see with a whole different view.
Not my prejudiced tunnel view as if looking from within a fishbowl out.
But, as if I am out up somewhere looking into the fishbowl.
World is now different.
I am no longer the same.
Yet, all too quickly I pull myself back into the old, the familiar, the tunnel, the habitual, the fishbowl.
And yet, I become aware of intrusive repetitive thinking.
The on-guard to push away or to flee.
To be at war with or to escape from.
To numb.
To not touch.
To not be touched.
To not feel.
It hurts.
It hurts too much.
To never again feel.
To never again love.
And yet, for an ever brief intense moment.
There was a crack in the on-guard.
Something in wants to get out.
Something out wants to get in.
There is a place.

~Denny Sedlack 6-27-2015

Author, Dennis Sedlack: Now some fifty-one years from his war experience, Denny is exploring art and expression at the Warrior Story Field. That exploration sources the following question: “what is it to re-humanize after the dehumanization of the war experience, the culture?” This exploration is on-going. Retired/Married with two children, four grandchildren, and one great-grandchild. Veteran Advocate and contributing artist/member to the Warrior Storyfield.