"Too old ", he thought.
"Too tired, too slight ",
the white beard told a tale
and stripes,
career. 'Marse Robert'
had appeared
where once a loyal son
had strode the Plain
of West Point.
Memory was pain
that clawed a path
through Northern lines,
and Lee conducted death
as aptly as a priest
does Holy Mass.
Wholly priest
and more of saint,
a wrathful God
of the Rebellion-
battles had created him
from piety and choler.
The towns, the hills,
the roads all cut a destiny
that General Lee
would see
they chisel through.
They would charge-
would hit those hills,
the time said 'now'
his men were how
he'd find his way to home,
to honor and Virginia.
He yearned to see
mimosa bloom
instead of wounds
that opened
red as petals.
Young men's spirits
bloomed like flowers
full of 'stars and bars'
then metal, and this Gettysburg
would bring on
Armageddon.
Next: 'Judas Goat'
