Grounded

There's a thin line
between despair and hope.
He sleeps on a bare mattress
on the carpeted floor
of a warm room for homeless veterans.
He and three other men share a house.
The walls are almost bare.
On top of the refrigerator
sits an array of pill bottles
which fail to stop the nightmares
he’s suffered since returning home
from Vietnam 30 years ago.
He works to stay sober
attending meetings four times a day.
It has been a 36 year battle with the bottle.
A stable place to live
has altered the pattern of crisis.
He has a place he can call his own
and his feet are grounded.
Hope discovered in the routine of daily life.
There are wicked, wicked, wicked nightmares.
The VA gives him all kinds of pills to forget.