Memorial Day’s Silent Reminder
Along the hills the landscape roams,
long carved by cliffs and sifting seas,
and where we can, we make our homes
portraited domesticities.
In fields and under shade of trees,
our story’s told in monuments —
shadows carved as history’s frieze,
to honor ours in half-true sense.
It’s safe, no doubt, in present tense,
to keep them in memoriam,
but safety’s sure emoluments
may yet call us to heed the drum
when marching forth to freedom’s tones
means being counted out in stones.
