A Civil War Battlefield
The field is given a name.
Battles are about where they disappear,
the ones that walk away
don't know where the hell they are.
There’s a cannon ball under that Yew tree,
there’s a skull under that Ash.
There’s a hank of dried up hair
over there, woven into stone and moss.
After the blood, peace continues destroying barns,
insignia and belt buckles fished out and sold.
Excavated jawbones order and counter-order.
The officers that staggered away
go quietly mad, or marry well.
Surviving hell takes
a lot of stump-footed foraging.
The maimed tell their jerrybuilt tales,
cracked rockers creek along
the slipways of generations.
Hounds bayed at coons.
in the hot afternoons;
that was before the earth gaped open,
before the gore seeped sideways
into the earths wounds.
Good Generals and bad
have had their deadly play,
this scattering and salvage
of the blue and grey that day.
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