PoemsPerDay

6.10

Limestone walls hanging from the soil

eighty souls went off to fight for eyes

to see the glory of the Lord, and only

twenty came home. The town died.

Boys we are entered in a great battle

for the soul of our union. God has

given you and I the strength of

arms to enter into this fray. Follow

me, stand with me, step over

the line of these hills, and we

shall stand and fall together

as men of God’s soil. For mine

eyes have seen the glory.

The trampled vintage of wrathful

grapes returned. With limbs and

lives and sinews torn, from the wounds

of that terrible swift sword. And the truth

of all those boys, torn from the heart

of their hopes, tore the town down.

The limestone walls rise now from that

broken soil, dentaled, hollowed, unseeing

yet possessed of the blood beneath their soil.

The hearts that stepped forward

in the love for their leader cry out

the loss of their youth and the pain

of those who survived.

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