Here’s to the Cardinal Puff

My wife and I put out seeds to feed

the little critters in our courtyard:

wrens and juncos, mourning doves,

squirrels, chipmunks, now and then

a rabbit. This morning a cardinal.

.

That reminded me of Cardinal Puff,

a drinking game we used to play

on Okinawa back in 1968; I’ve no idea

why that came to mind. I haven’t

thought of it in years, decades even,

but there the memory was.

.

This was after Vietnam, but I still

had time on my enlistment, so I

got sent to Okinawa. Back then,

Okinawa for a young enlisted man

was something like the armpit

of the universe: MPs everywhere,

little to do off base but pay too much

for drinks and hire prostitutes.

.

So we just stayed on base, where

at the NCO Club, you could drink

Heineken beer for 35 cents a pop.

We went there every night, night

after night after evening chow

for three straight months: Fat Pat,

Smitty, the Big Swede, and me,

stayed each night ‘til closing time,

and drank to the Cardinal Puff,

staggered back to the barracks,

and the next night did it again.

.

It’s what you do, or at least

what we did after our little piece

of that war was over, and we’d

no idea what we’d done or what

we were supposed to do

with the rest of our lives.

.

Fifty-eight years later, I’m feeding

seeds and nuts to little critters

on a cold and snowy winter day,

and here’s a cardinal. And I

can’t resist the urge to ask

out loud: “Is your name Puff?”