At Gettysburg

Unyielding stone, the furniture au naturel, no dress lace tablecloth concealing ants scavenging our picnic lunch. Loathe are we to flick them while they steal our cheese and crackers. Siblings ensconced, diffused canopy of oak umbrellas, searing sun bewitches charming shadows; clover, petals three and sometimes four, meadows pleasant carpets cradling this resolute rock. These stones echo cries reverberating past more than a century's memorializing years when other siblings set swords upon this grave frontier in armies blue and gray amassed. Immortal the crashing clash, bone against bone, at Gettysburg to keep this nation one. Faye Lanham Gibson