Having to Find Myself

(This poem is written from the perspective of a young soldier in the Civil War.  The constant changing of tent-mates a stark reminder of death at every turn).


I am having to
find myself;
trying
to remember
who
it was that
stood at my side
only just

this morning –

as we struggled toward
the main of the fighting –

amid the dark,
dreamlike fog
of trying to swim past
the un-sureness in
my soul –
in all our souls and
across every living
thing that is standing
on this our present
battlefield.

You have seen this,
Walt,
a thousand, thousand times
you have seen this
in your ambling wander
through the great
stretches of the war that
we set ourselves to –

amid the trickling
flood of the chaoses
of the skirmish
and all the mismatch
of impressions and
intentions.

He was a young
man – that I know –
not unlike myself;
but,
his name,
his name is not
close upon my lips –

not anywhere in the air
about the me
that I have become.

He had only just
moved into my tent –
but
a
day ago
or so –

and his name,
his name
I do not know.

He took the bed
of my earlier
friend,

that friend that
only just fell

himself to
his death;
his lonely
solitary death on
the bloody gravel
just beyond
our morning fire.

One day,
a bed belongs
to a friend,
and the next
a stranger finds
his way into it –

a placeholder against
the clouds of purpling,
black powder and lead
of shot.

Walt, O Walt,
peripatetic sage
of these democratic
shores and flowers,
how have you written
this anguish into
parchment with
your pen?

How have you shared
this desperate, ragged, and
suffering condition with the
mothers and the fathers
of the fallen?

We saw you here,
tending
the lads
who were dying.
We saw you
take to pen
to share a son’s
last words with
his ma and with
his pa.

I wonder where
the souls come from
that inhabit all of
these constantly
changing
bodies –

constantly
changing
forms
of God.

Is there some dank
emotion that a land must
feel, that a land
must envelope

at the exact moment
of each death or
whisper of decay;

as the youth which
grew upon it
fall down
in a lifeless heap?
Or does it
pass unnoticed?

Which the worse?
Does some act of love
or whimsy encourage
a dour mood in a man
that marches him
thus off to war –

off toward the grave
when he ages toward
his manhood –

toward his own final
independence?

Is there some
turn of the face – away
from the direction of
the eyes –

that does instill
a calamitous decline
at just that moment?

His step was furtive
and unsure that morning
as we left the campfire.

He turned anxiously
from one side to the
other; looking for some
veiled hint of approval
from those who stood
at his boot – those he
called friend.
Sentinels at his
left and
at his right.

It was that instance of
doubt that made him
hesitate –
just where
to point his gun,
just where to thrust
his bayonet.

It was then,
Walt,
in that instant
of the instance
of his hesitation
that he fell to the
ground – the ground
on which we both stood –

dead. Just and only
dead.

Write him, Walt,
write them all
an elegy that
will keep us
from doing this
all again –
from doing this
even one more day.

Write him, Walt,
in a way that will help
me remember who
he was and who it
was who took his bed.

For, I am undone
and cannot find
my way

April 1865. "Cold Harbor, Virginia. Collecting remains of dead on the battlefield after the war."Memento mori. Wet plate by John Reekie.

A Sadness at the Disparity; Anguish at Gettysburg

There is a sadness
in the heart of man
that binds him to the
heart of every other man;

a sadness at the disparity
and emptiness we feel
when we think of all the
wars we have marched
ourselves off into.

It is a cello playing
slowly in the morning
sunlight; the rays creeping
between wisps of smoke
rising from the fires of
biscuits and coffee. The
hours will languish,
but the strains will wear on.

Claiming the protection of the
softer and gentler nature of our
humanity, we have told ourselves
this violence we allow in the
unbridled passion of killing for
belief is to be expected.
War is a consequence of our
of our duality and our compromise.

From here it looks like
tendons and muscles all
bloodied and torn. They
tell me we must do this
or all else will fail.

And yet, this hollow and
aching presence in my center
does not feel good.
But, it ties me to all other
men: at this time and through
all time. And, I am not sure how
to honor this - this aching and
horrific sense of my participation
in something dark and ill.

And yet, and yet again
as I see them come up
and over that small bluff
with their steel
shining and glinting
in the early morning light
of day, I know that
if I long to see my dear and
helpless child again - my
lovely and fair wife -
I must drag my mixed
emotion into that battle
and kill or be killed.

How have I allowed myself
to be carted off into a land of
woe and agony - a sea of despair
and contempt for another.

How have we endorsed this madness
throughout time. We have killed the
better angels of our nature and we
stand upon their bruised and bloodied
bodies, unaware that our boots
are slowly sinking into their loving
flesh.

What have we done. Who writes this
madness into the hearts of mankind.
I do not fear the dying
as much as I fear what I have become.

And yet, there is no time
I must rise and pack my powder;
I must run, into the stream of chaos,
with an empty belly and a heart
full of memories.

I only pray I will
settle on some peaceful scene in my
heart - in my mind - if it is me
that lay a dyin' at the end of day.

I can still hear the cello staining
for a "c", straining to open my heart
as I hurry toward the glint
and shine of their steel coming over
the muddied ridge.

Brother against Brother

When I woke up
I was on the battlefield.

I can not believe for
however long I was out cold
that I had no recollection
of the war.

It took me
a moment to remember
where I was.

The bodies
and the smoke brought
it all back home to me -
QUICKLY.

It crept into every other
small crevice of my life
until - I believe - even the
hairs of my ear knew we
were at war; we were
pitted brother against brother.
So, I was startled to notice
that there was an inkling in
time - a ripple in my memory -
that did not know I was at war;
that we were at war.

Simply saying those words -
"brother against brother" -
in my own head, in my own heart
raises the taste of blood and
bitterness into my dry
and parched mouth. I feel as
if I was forced to fight them;
as if some cauldron of ire and
stamina was kicked over. In
order to avoid burning our feet
we all began a mad dance and
a hooting and a hollering that became
itself a contagion for its own
continuation - its own perpetuation.
It kept on well into the night of our
days on the raw nerve of too
much pride and embarrassment.
No one could admit to themselves
what we were doing - the base
and vile hypnotic euphoria led us
into a trance that has altered our
state of consciousness just enough
to have shifted the earth on its
access without our knowing.
Everything has changed. Nothing
has remained the same.

There are days in a man's lifetime
that he can look up to the dark and
early morning sky, and while
catching a glimpse of Ursula Major,
he can feel the gentle breath of a
few fallen snowflakes on his cheek.
Right here, right now, this
is one of those moments. But then,
I recognize that I have no legs
and that the freshness of the new
fallen snow is tainted beyond beauty
with the blood of the battlefield.

I am undone.
I am undone.