muddy boots - a family found

dead to the world he drags himself from sleep
his mind decompresses with hot cup of joe
the sun is not up and no bird makes a peep
with the dew on the ground and the sun low
daily frustrations return of a promise he can't keep
to his family of returning home he can not go

muddy boots cleaned last nite fall back into line
another swelty day with a good chance of rain
missing his family explodes his heart like a landmine
as the stress of this dispair cause a migraine
thoughts of his children running in the sunshine
wife's silhoutte in the moonlight drive him insane

they load up the humvee and leave their post
like a 180 degree turn from heaven to hell
the drive seems like hours along the battered coast
where they are going hits him like a bombshell
they turn into his neighborhood which got it the most
he can't see his house which was crushed by the swell

when they stop a crowd rushes in seeking refuge
there is his wife looking beautiful yet broken and frail
she is crushed by the desperate crowd growing huge
apparently not eating she's as thin as a steel rail
his commander tells him to get her to baton rouge
he looks from her to him with a face that is pale

they leave to see what remains of his demolished abode
holding her tight he picks her up at a trot
down the debris strown path that was once his road
and sees the smile of his sick looking young tot
then the rest creep out like a little scared toad
he lays her down in the yard that has not yet rot

he hugs his children in what seems to be forever
he cries at the fact that his precious ones survived
he calls his comrades to collect them as they quiver
his heart had all but stopped is now painfully revived
watching his steps as he carries wife in the trash river
he is exhausted with joy at his humvee he arrived

with his family and remains from his lost home
back at the post to catch a ride up I12 northwest
driving quickly past what had once been the superdome
he is awed at the power that little lady on her quest
from the atlantic and the gulf did she distructively roam
he travels west then north to find a place they can rest

upon finding a cousin of a friend of a buddy from iraq
out north of town west of the river past the refineries
his family has found refuge at an ostrich and rice ranch
to a place that has a small business of a microbrewery
where a guy that will help a G.I. stuck out on a branch
with a wife who's a doctor sees them and starts to cry

after spending time caring for and holding his long lost family
he returns to his duty and travels back to the new badlands
he moves faster and feels stronger with the joy he could see
for weeks he toiled saving lives and taking in their demands
gets his orders to go back to the fighting for those to be free
wiping off the muddy boots from what once distant sands