Memorial day poem
At The Vietnam Memorial
Today takes the color of the sun,
The air is filled with fine with it;
The dead leaves, lumped
and molted; flattened grass
take it like platinum;
the mall , simple, bare
plan of a tree standing
clothed and sudden in it's
clean explicable light
Across the muddy
grounds of Constitution
Gardens, we've come to find
your brothers name etched
in the long black muster
of sixteen years of war-
the earth walked raw
this morning by workman still
gravelling paths and people
brought here by dreams
more solemn than grief.
A kid in a sweater hurries
past us, face clenched
against tears. And couples,
gray haired, touching hands,
there midwestern faces calm
plain as the stenciled names
ranked on the black marble
in order of casualty,
the 57, 939 dead soldiers
R. Dana
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