Soldiers Nightmare

Soldiers Nightmare

They will come
beneath hallowed soils  there lay  rings
buttons and barrels rusting away and mixed with  them
granite pitted and worn grey stone
covered in green moss
In the dappling sun splattering  mixing with  roots of
overgrown  oak and pine
ancient  and ghost memories adorn the night

This  night  the moon shadows cast about chasing the
ghosts still moving  though long since  silenced
from oak to stone from split rail fence
to the banks of swollen creeks
are men  in grey and boys in blue
was one of them you
my son ?

The cries of dying boys echo yet and tear away
at all the goodness known of man
this  silence of the birds bear witness
he hears them still and  has for years and
perhaps decades
for who can segment the hours or who
the days
who can divide the hours into the holding
of a dying boy ?

Only the soldier knows  that the silent echo
returning  again and again and again
only the soldier  can hear them though  this  soldier will never cry out
not a sound in his sleep
where the body cannot move
as in  all wounded  limbs
and he knows
the echoes will come for him too
though  tonight the soldier rests
there will come his night too

He saw his son there somewhere near Antietam
the last time they met
they shook hands in a passing column
boy and man in blue
the boy crying and the fathers gentle smile
he returned to the north alone
knowing  his son  was buried
with honor
and
later to return and re-intern
the casket and he on the  train
he the  casket
and soldiers nightmare

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EdF

Sometime in my life, I started to write about my life journey, or in poetry, in story perhaps to sort out the missing from the found perhaps and enter them into a place of safekeeping. The soul of the writer is perhaps best described in their own words, emotions and thoughts. If these poems or stories touch something inside you then maybe I have succeeded in sharing. I will not write about my self in profile, because self isn't so important in writing. Only the journey in words and the sharing are important. Why would we say "Now about me!"... I'd rather write about life, nature, serenity ...

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