The Living Dead

My mind wanders to the stillness of a field where wild asters used to stud the grass with blue I seem to hear the echo of a voice Lamenting over the vast stretches where my thoughts cling Here, children ran and played and called each other yesterday and people sometimes lazed in the earth's firmness Riffling the crisp grass through their fingers or gaze into the blue greyness of the vast unknown Once this field nurtured life Once a squirrel hid in it's thickness, an ant crawled busily as it clung to a tree Once all was teeming with life Like a mother who nurtures a babe inside her womb not a living creature now on that field None whose love, whose life, whose breath once braced the hearts of those he knew What is that echo I seem to hear where recently the field turned battlefield Of maimed and wounded I seem to hear the repeated blows against my chest Or, do I hear the outside pounding of a heart now the stench of death spreads an eerie feeling over me I walk bent, my ear tuned to someone's distress I cannot feel uplifted It matters not where the source of death is life clocking it's rhythmic beat On its march to that irrevocable end but when the arrogant hand of the battle In Vietnam, Valley Forge, Verdun, Gettysburg or Golan Heights moves the pace faster Who am I not to feel the pain the deep sore pain I share with those mourning Mourning their beloved dead striped of a life once dear to their very own essence And dear to those who knew and loved and cared who now have gnawing at their vitals the agony of loss Like an amputation of the very fibers of their being I share the deep sore pain of those left mourning I think of their moment of anguish, their eons of hurt Yet hope springs among some And sometimes cheer a moment of cheer like a grace note against a solemn chord I picture myself on that field among the dying I go deep into their entrails Among those struggling to grip that last grip that last gasp Until beaten by death they surrender Yet at times, I'm among those who go to death with grace As though the secret of the unknown were revealed in beauty I ask myself, " Which would I " ? I cannot know the imponderable And yet I know a choice I'll be called to make I'm back with those left living again Living and mourning I grope perhaps to soothe with words or comfort with my touch But I feel empty, hollowed out am endless desert Like those who once knew those dead