Threes

I WAS a boy when I heard three red words a thousand Frenchmen died in the streets for: Liberty, Equality, Fraternity — I asked why men die for words. I was older; men with mustaches, sideburns, lilacs, told me the high golden words are : Mother, Home, and Heaven — other older men with face decorations said : God, Duty, Immortality — they sang these threes slow from deep lungs. Years ticked off their say-so on the great clocks of doom and damnation, soup and nuts : meteors flashed their say-so: and out of great Russia came three dusky syllables workmen took guns and went out to die for: Bread, Peace, Land. And I met a marine of the U. S. A., a leatherneck with a girl on his knee for a memory in ports circling the earth and he said: Tell me how to say three things and I always get by — gimme a plate of ham and eggs — how much? — and — do you love me, kid?