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1st MANASSAS
Drums started the boys west to this field from Washington.
War to them was a three-month enlistment,
a bright uniform & a chance to carry a musket.
Senators, Congressmen, their wives & children,
packed baskets with lunches & followed to watch the show.
Almost a century & a half has passed.
Somehow my visit seems forced, disrespectful.
I walk through the field, burnt umber by a dry summer & the changing season,
toward three oaks that would only have been saplings when the battle started on this hill—
much like the boys whose spirits are still here.
My foot step snaps a fallen branch.
Starlings lift from the oaks
then settle again.
War to them was a three-month enlistment,
a bright uniform & a chance to carry a musket.
Senators, Congressmen, their wives & children,
packed baskets with lunches & followed to watch the show.
Almost a century & a half has passed.
Somehow my visit seems forced, disrespectful.
I walk through the field, burnt umber by a dry summer & the changing season,
toward three oaks that would only have been saplings when the battle started on this hill—
much like the boys whose spirits are still here.
My foot step snaps a fallen branch.
Starlings lift from the oaks
then settle again.
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