Enrique Gautier
From Sea to Shinning Sea
Remember laced boots. Remember left. Remember right. Remember an oath. Remember life. LIFE REMEMBERS. Life Remembers. life r-e-m-e-m-b-e-r-s. life. Remember to inhale. Remember to exhale. Remember to remember. Remember to forget. Remember air. Remember pain. Remember pain. Your pain. Remember to cry. Remember to laugh. Remember service. Remember unit. Remember brothers. Remember sisters. Remember the forgotten. Remember to salt. Remember water. Remember to eat. Remember to drink. Remember to drink without drinking. Remember BAMCIS. Remember MET-D. Remember firewall. Remember bulkhead. Remember division. Remember unit. Remember battle-buddy. Remember. Remember the fallen. Remember the fallen still walking. Remember home. Remember dust. Remember spiders. Remember crumbs. Remember rain. Remember ponchos. Remember marches. Remember mud-marches. Remember life. Life remembers the rain, mud, marches and pain. Remember. Remember. Remember. Remember blood. Remember red blood. Remember brown blood. Whose blood. Remember. Remember echoes. Remember silence. Remember sonic silence. Remember anti-emetics. Remember charred blood. Remember anti-emetics. Remember anti-psychotics. Remember ALS. Remember service. Remember dotted lines. Remember wait-lines. Remember hurry-up to wait. Remember Richard Conley Monk Jr. Remember Monk. Remember Monk vs. U.S. Remember meds. Remember sertraline. Remember insulin. Remember Eliquis. Remember black. Remember brown. Remember strength. Remember death. Remember PTSD. Remember PTSD’s Death. Remember CPAP. Remember words. Remember war. Remember past. Remember war’s past. Remember geometry. Remember arcs. Remember radius. Remember 5 meters. Rember 800 meters. Remember a bullet’s radius. Rember a bullet’s dance. Rember bloodied bullets. Never remember. Remember 48 lines. 48 lines too few. Remember poets. Poets remember. Remember lines. Lines turn to remembers. Lines remember words. Words remember pain. Lines remember pain. Lines remembering lines remembering pain. Remember. Remember time to write to remember and I only have forty-eight lines to write. Remember twenty-two a day. Remember long lines. Remember ghosts. Ghosts remember. Remember Kabul, Baghdad, Saigon, Normandy, Paris. Never remember New York. Never Remember D.C. Remember love. Remember love bullets. Remember a child. Remember a child’s spin. Remember mines dancing in a child’s field. Remember teddy bears. Remember Halloween. Remember warlocks. Remember witches. Remember monsters. Remember your monsters. Remember your monsters will remember. Monsters remember. Remember souls. Remember a monster’s soul. Your soul. Remember. Remember a moment your soul left your soul to become a monster. The moment where your memory burned in the sand’s oil. Remember. Remember oil. Remember refined oil. Remember oil refineries. Remember oil pipelines. Remember oil pipes. Remember oil rigs. Remember bullets. Remember oil bullets. Remember gold. Remember gold bullets. Remember the pain inflected upon your brothers and sisters by cowards not fit to fight a war sending men and women and children to an eternal death all in the name of a gold bullet to remember the day and night they took the same and oath and the rage continues in my veins to remember. Remember oaths. Remember an oath. Remember the hate in the soul steeping in your bitter coffee mug. Bitter butter buttery coffee keeping you awake at night to ward off the monsters of the night. I remember my remembers. My re-members remember remembers. I remember the day. I remember the night. I remember the walking dead. I remember my thoughts to forget. I remember my pain. I remember it all. From sea to shining sea. Remember.
“I wrote ‘From Sea to Shining Sea’ during the 2024 Summer Writing Program at Naropa University, shortly after taking a seminar with Carolina Ebid, that explored the work of Middle Eastern authors and photographers. The work of Samer Abu Hawwash and Etel Adnan deeply influenced me, inspiring me to confront the legacy of the Long Wars and the transformation of language. I decided to use Americana to frame the wounds of war and to confront the cost of sustaining American exceptionalism.” —Enrique Gautier
Enrique Gautier is a BIPOC veteran, poet, and educator. A Navy veteran of Operation Enduring Freedom, he teaches English, Creative Writing, and Literature at Red Rocks Community College, Creative Writing at the VA. He is also an adjunct for Naropa University and the Lighthouse Writers Workshop. His work has appeared in Bombay Gin, The War Horse, and other journals and anthologies. In 2025 he was invited to deliver a TEDx talk at the University of Essex.