Odin's Birds/Walking the Wall

Pulled one perfect day from the heart of summer, Went with my wife, the kids, a friend Down to cruise the monuments To study those menhirs we set for marking passage Into collective memory. We ascended the virile spire Erected in honor of our ponytailed First Elect, The children pleased to gaze out on a toy city below us. We descended and walked down the long flat mirror of water To where Lincoln, strong and sad in bronze Sits forever troubled by his sundered nation In his cool, dark, echoing vault. Then lunch, and a visit to the commemoration of our most recent sorrow; We cross over and walk the Wall. Row on row, Stark white upon shining black The rollcall of the dead processes by. It's crowded today, but no one speaks The silence here is a crashing thing that falls all around us As we walk and search Some for names, some for answers, Some for both, or neither Ourselves for I know not what. And in the black Flowing past the names, and names, and names This perfect day hangs captured in its light: Cotton clouds on blinding blue Grass greener than new money The faces of children, dogs And a parade of young couples - It all hangs there, flowing over the terrible list, Reminding all how they should be here too, Those not-so-long-ago lost. But then, in a sense, they are here And that's why the silence crashes so. 58,000 empty chairs are here. 58,000 phantoms, The Bad Conscience of a good nation. 58,000 Not-To-Bes are here: Not-To-Be husbands, fathers, family, friends Not-To-Be Victories and Not-To-Be Dreams 58,000 horrors of Loss. In the midst of these shuddering reveries My blissfully distracted 7 year-old son Plucks a small, perfect feather off the lawn, As black and glossy as the wall itself, And carries it idly along. Once out, we stop to talk with one of the Fallen's many advocates, A great Viking of a man who notices the feather Who says right away, "Ah, a raven's feather. Odin's birds, who bring him Wisdom and Rememberance." I saved the feather, knowing what I do of ravens: Those sombre, croaking birds, First on the field after battle I stroked its silky black and wished Odin's birds would visit the common folk more often And croak to us of Remembrance, and Wisdom.