David Rheins

Memorial Day

 

Three hundred fifty

And fourteen

Days to wait for this

One time a year

To lay down our pencils

And remember those

Who lay down their lives

 

++++++

 

What would Walt Whitman say of the state of the Union?

He who imagined us from way back then, remembering him

He who walked the fields of death in that least civil of all wars

Brother fighting kin, dying and maiming

And bleeding in Northern and Southern woods

With awful musket balls, rifle shells, sharp shrapnel

Canon fodder, flying lead and all manner of projectiles thick overhead

In cold wet fields and in dark old barns

On crutches in stretchers in backyard they bled

They came in troops with uniforms and left one by one

We all die one by one, naked and alone

 

What would old Walter have to say?

He who loved brother, sister, sailor, soldier, footman

Recognizing we are not connected, but are one.

One country, under God, indivisible

The great Revolution and since then

So many wars and so many gone

Or returned home with scars and lack of limb

Lack of opportunity, save mercenary

Naked and alone we come into this world

And back that route so we shall go

 

 

David Rheins Blogs at: www.davidrheins.wordpress.com