Glacier Polish, niche erratics, Eagle Cap Wilderness
On the road in the American Northwest.
Glacier Polish, niche erratics, Eagle Cap Wilderness
On the road in the American Northwest.
WARMEMDEAD
—for Dickevicki,
Vietnam Vet, lover of poetry, and friend
on many of the happy backroads
of my Berkeley days
Imagine two flocks of white doves released
at a ceremony's end up into the bright morning air, but that
they remain by some tragic mistake tethered to the ground.
The birds fly up to the heavens, but fall just as quickly back to
the earth in a sudden tug of violence. Yet all present,
because of their own grief, their own great personal loss,
seem utterly unaware of this terrible suffering of the doves.
Just so, at the end of this wall, remain two questions which
the heart releases, and which flutter helplessly about in need
of some resolution, some serious, believable, answer:
Where are the other names,
the names we cannot pronounce,
the names that would have increased
the wall's already temendous, horrible length
at least five-fold?
And will this be the last such wall,
the last such war,
or shall we repeat again, and then again, the same
wholly unnecessary, brutal, mistake
of making more of such wars,
and of such walls?
At the end of the wall remain two questions, questions
a child might ask that the heart releases, and which flutter
about in need of some resolution, some serious, believable,
answer.
Broken Bridge Camp,
Eagle Cap Wilderness,
Oregon, X.29.2008
