Earth-proud, proud of the earth which is not theirs;
Who steer the plough, but cannot steer their feet
Clear of the grave.
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In shivers of grass
the names come
that stop time.
Death without end
committed to this land,
they have become it.
That is the will
that fists through hallowed ground
animate bone that long lay lonely
droving the grass to whispers
in this plowed place
by those caught young, of callow breath.
Though flesh is gone
its corporeal feel must cry
still. That is the chill here.
Gettysburg wheat grows high
and waves the air
that once was hard with lead.
Restless now through carrion corn
the dead speak.
The copper smell of battle
and the canter of their horses
cut a trespass through the bone,
and the remnant of their bleeding
has a language of its own.
They need us to remember
how, while dressing ranks, they fell.
And having fallen, stopped here
not as we are stopping now
but dropping from their lives,
their loves and homes
they fell forever.
Do you feel it?
Do you sense that time has folded?
The dead will pound their dying
till the heart will open up to cup
their last ASTONISHED blink.
A tuning fork struck by a murderous hand
is this ground, and young men transmuted
to martyrs
demand to be found.
"And there lay John.
He was an only son
and proud."
~Click On The Cannon~
for more superb Gettysburg photos
by Lisa De Cusati.
