Page 21 - Contrast1991Spring

Gettysburg: On the Field of Picketfs Charge

The face of the infantryman
above me, weathered and blank

his monument pays tribute only to greed,
to factions that slaughter for gain.

But I hear an honest tale, more
real than plaques and statues-

in these stone walls, snaking along the ridge
piled shin-high in a cold sweat rush
by soldiers under cover of night;

and in this copse of trees, target
for the furious charge, now fenced in iron
out of place in this string of marble and bronze.

I lay flat out behind the rocks and sight
cornstalks, but the grass seems eager
to help me forget how fifteen thousand sons and brothers fell,

scattered like leaves on burial ground.

I listen to the grass, to the mud and wind,
to the deer at the edge of the distant woods-
they speak louder than cannon:

"Corne feed on the peace which
Earth grows from seeds of blood
with the bitter rain of tears,

melt into these fields and
be briefly free of your battles,

get up, raise your voice and sing
Where powder and ball once screamed,

laugh and dance, here where corpses
once bloated in midsummer sun."

-Pat Blackman

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