Americans

Far from North Carolina tobacco fields

and mountain homes…are stones.

Lined in pristine rows

in the shadows of the arms of Catalpa trees.

Mothers, who loved God so, to name their boys…

Elijah, Noah and Benjamin,

wept through eons to never see them again.

Shoulder to shoulder they lie,

as once they stood in one-room school houses,

felled by blue bullets.

Here are Americans.

Arms that once picked Georgia peaches

cross empty lungs,

and far away Texas bemoans her loss.

“CSA” all the stones say,

as sparrows perch upon their tops

with tails that waggle in the breeze.

A number, a name,

fading faces as wind and rain and snow

of Ohio are erasing their memories.

Stone #579 and #581

were Confederate father’s sons,

who waded Mississippi mud to gather rice.

Gone stone #580.

perhaps you’ve journeyed home to Alabama,

to a place where mothers cry

from kitchen windows, as they view you.

Near the spear-tipped gate,

a cannon ball from Vicksburg,

echoes…its thunder, a lone reminder of war.

Shades salute,

wishing they were home.

The green grass of summer draws water

from wells beneath the bones.