On a Sunday warm in Lafayette,
The church bells quiet, the hour set,
A father, Bruce, sank in his chair,
While peace hung soft upon the air.
His little son, just two years old,
With hair like sunlight, bright and bold,
Slammed his toy plane with fierce delight—
“Plane crash! Plane crash!” through morning light.
At first, Bruce smiled—just boyish play,
But something deep began to sway.
For James had dreams that chilled the bone—
Of fire, and skies, and death alone.
He’d wake up screaming in the night,
“Japanese shot me down mid-flight!”
He’d cry of smoke, of sinking fast,
Of crashing hard—his final blast.
A child so young could barely speak,
Yet told of war from history’s peak.
No films, no tales had he been shown,
Still whispered names he’d never known.
“Corsiar airplane,” he’d softly claim,
“A fiery end, the Japanese to blame.”
Bruce puzzled hard—how could this be?
His son spoke war like memory.
Doctors smiled, “It’s just a phase,
Kids imagine in their ways.”
But Bruce felt something wasn’t right—
These dreams grew sharper every night.
So one day with a hopeful aim,
He opened a book of World War flame.
“Son,” he asked, “do you know these men?
Were you in battles way back then?”
The boy flipped pages, one by one,
Until his finger stopped—“That’s where I’m from!
They shot me down right over there!”
He pointed firm—Iwo Jima’s air.
Bruce froze in place, his heart a drum,
Could truth hide here from lips so young?
He searched through lists both long and wide,
For pilots lost who’d fought and died.
No “coarse” planes lost, the records said,
Yet one strange thread would not be shed.
He found a group of war’s old men,
And traveled far to speak with them.
They told him, “Sir, just one was lost,
One pilot fell, one paid the cost.
His name was James—James Houston, Jr.,
Shot down at Iwo’s bloody rumour.”
Bruce’s mind could hardly spin,
His son named James—what lay within?
Could fate or chance explain this lore,
Or something deeper at its core?
He wrote the fallen pilot’s kin,
A sister, kind, who took it in.
She sent old photos from the past—
And Bruce’s breath was fading fast.
For there he stood—by wings of gray,
A Coarse Air plane in proud array.
The same plane type his child had told,
Before he’d ever heard its old.
And James, the boy, said now and then,
“I’m James the Third—I lived back when.”
As if two lives in one soul swirled,
Reborn again into this world.
When grown men gathered once again,
At Iwo’s meet of war-born men,
The child came forth—he knew each name,
Each detail burned within his frame.
He met the sister, hugged her tight,
And softly said her name just right—
A nickname known to one long gone,
A ghost remembered, soul reborn.
Now tales of faith and science blend,
Where reason cracks and mysteries bend.
If life returns when bodies fade,
Then James the Third had truth displayed.
A tiny child, with skies to claim,
Who once was lost in smoke and flame—
Returned through time, through death’s divide,
To tell the world we never truly die.