"The River Did Not Weep"

By Matt Smythe

Imagine the Chattahoochie River
Meandering minor Mississippi with the same amount of mud.
The stretch that borders Ft. Benning in Georgia is bound
by black willows, cypress, cottonwood, pawpaw, kudzu, beaver, heron,
cottonmouth, chiggers and cicada heat.

I was there when the Rangers loaded
the C-130 for night-jump training.
I was there when the plane took off and flew
a five-mile circle before approaching the drop zone nap-of-the-earth.
I was there when they stood up, hooked up to the static line
and waited on the green light.
I was there when the last seven were rushed by their First Sergeant
out the door and into the night after the jump window had passed.

The First Sergeant followed on the heels of the last Ranger.
The last seven dropped silently except for
the soft whip-billow of their parachutes,
into the tangle of undergrowth at the treeline,
into the riverside trees,
into the night-black Chattahoochie.

All but the First Sergeant were found alive
And when taps was played for the fallen Ranger
the river did not weep.

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Matt Smythe hails from the Finger Lakes region of western New York. An Army veteran and lifelong outdoorsman, Matt suffers from an inability to sit still. If he’s not in the woods, or on the water, he’s scheming ways to get there. His work has appeared in Free Range American, Gray’s Sporting Journal, the Fly Fish Journal, The Drake, Southern Culture on the Fly, Revive, Midcurrent, TROUT Magazine, and a handful of other non-outdoors-related magazines and literary journals. He recently published a book of poetry with Dead Reckoning Collective titled Revision of a Man, where this poem first appeared.

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What’s happening at VetRep…

Catch our interview with Michael D. Fay this week on the Savage Wonder Podcast.

Our first full-length playwriting contest winner, Brat by Jason Pizzarello is now going to be our first co-production workshop reading with Rockland County’s Penguin Rep Theatre. Directed by Bob Balaban (The Exonerated, Gosford Park, The French Dispatch), the readings will star Edie Falco (The Sopranos, Nurse Jackie, Avatar: The Way of Water). Workshop readings are scheduled Friday, April 14 at 7 p.m., Saturday, April 15 at 3 p.m. and 7 p.m., and Sunday, April 16 at 2 p.m. Seating is limited. Tickets are $30 ($25 for veterans) and can be purchased online at penguinrep.org or by calling the Penguin box office at (845) 786-2873. Tickets can be purchased here.

Voting for the next round in the Hudson Valley Reader’s Poll is live! You all were amazing at voting us through the first round and we would be so honored to make it through the next of Hudson Valley’s Best. Vote for VetRep at this link!

We are currently offering multiple dates for our online and in-person Playwriting for Veterans classes, and our Acting for Beginners class is now being offered weekly every Saturday from 10am-12pm. Registration details can be found here.

Savage WonderGround is coming back to Alexandria, VA on April 13th. Get all the details and snag your tickets here.