She though about him, remembering, waiting everyday by the river looking north into the low hills expecting to see a rider emerging at the top, not believing that war could touch him, take him away, because, he was hers...

He let the horse to pick the way home
maybe an abstract notion in its mind
he went forward leaving the battle field
were smoke even after two days of fighting
still was raising going to the skies
with a message of men in war’s pain,
with utterly sadness and despondency
asking themselves that eternal why?!!!
which follows every battle’s silence when
brother man killed another brother man.

Cold, not only over the scarred fields,
but that freezing cold that its inside
looking at tangled bodies of friends with
foes that had bleed the same as they died
together, far from home, for a few inches
forward of an insignificant piece of land;
the wind blew around him gossamer smoke
clapping now and then every few yards
to remind him that he was leaving forever,
going home, he thought it was about time!

The saddle uttered protest from the leather
as the way become more roughed, at last,
going down from the familiar lower hills
that descended to the river and thirty drank
from the traveling inebriating lazy waters
calmly slithering through a labyrinth of ice,
then, a welcoming smell hit his nostrils
because far away home wasn’t anymore far,
magnolias and jasmines were out of season
but not in the garden she made in his heart.

A creased picture was in his left gray pocket
singed in a corner where a bullet went by
leaving on his maltreated uniform jacket chess
among other men’s blood’s drops, a gash,
another ribbon of honor for a honorable soldier
that now were leaving the horrors well behind,
getting nearer and nearer to the waiting woman
whose picture kept reminding him to survive,
the cold on his tired lips she will take care of,
with moist and warm tender lips once he arrive.

The horse ears suddenly came up and so its pace,
to cross the now low river it found a easy pass,
the hooves hitting the stones with home, home,
a place to rest in total silence and roll on the grass;
then, in the middle of the river wading he saw
a very known figure, where they used to bath,
heaven’s name, how she did knew he was coming,
or she was there expecting his arrival all this time?
his heels told the horse to hurry up, was just there,
dismounting, tearful eyes, and she was in his arms.