There was nothing I could do about it. There was no other way I could read what Gretel Kovach wrote that Cpl. Clancy Cheek said but to see it as pure poetry. Off out there in Helmand Province in Afghanistan the words right out of Cpl. Cheek’s mouth arrange themselves in the kinds of line breaks and rhythm that great poets strive to make when they labor over an idea they believe can be made into a poem. Cpl. Cheek’s mind was responding to his heart and to remembering his friend Cpl. Alec Catherwood. That’s how poetry happens.

Not just about Motorcycles

“It’s a way to get away
...from everything.
When you’re riding and you look up
...at the sky,
There’s nothing between you and it.

It feels like you’re floating along.
There’s nothing that can bother you.”

--Clancy Cheek

Read about Cpl. Clancy (middle name Colt, “like a young horse”) Cheek’s remembrance of his friend, Alec Catherwood in Gretel Kovach’s piece in today’s San Diego Union-Tribune. Kovach is embedded with Camp Pendleton-based Marines in Helmand province, Afghanistan.

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2011/mar/19/marine-pays-tribute-brother-arms/