Soliloquy At The Wall Poem by Charles Eastland

SOLILOQUY AT THE WALL

Here at the strangely beautiful obsidian wall
we stand weak before the brave we remember
so raised in love to be men who would sacrifice
to protect our country with all their heart
their dreams, and their only given life

Pained here we are mourning these forever gone
we the helpless against death honor our valiant
under the same proud flag that called from towns
and cities, from ball fields and wedding aisles
young men who believed and rallied to patriotism
we in this deep wound of knowing our votes lied

Here amidst the grand bones and monuments
tombs of presidents and battlefield troops below
earth’s green manicured grass humble in elegance
the wall unfurling its black veil of granite
this long roll-call memorial to dreams and lives
of soldier stars that shine softly in our hearts
and etched in the pages of eternal night's book

The votive procession here reflects on vertigo walls
but the screams of soldiers last battle are yet unheard
back home in the TV land's pouty fantasy fooled heads
play the Hollywood groomed digital child's video wars
and dilettante super heroines with powers that die at exits
of the movie house where blood was shed only in reruns.

But here the Wall strikes a conscious dilemma for some
who have evolved to civilized heights to discover a crack
in sentience where hearts are funneled in media revved herds
steely whipped and rushed on the next new bandwagon to war
for the pentagonal starch-shirt’s industrial jobs debt
and our military corporation government's new regime change

The Wall impacts us this way, like black ice, cold and deep
the loss in the chest of survivors, a fraternity of suffering
love-ones, blood brothers and the nurses in whose eyes
each name ignites a friend, a buddy's face memory
is attached to a life not lost in the passages of time.

Here there are no young men's death screams, no blood soaked
combat boots and bags of body parts to see or hears
all’s peaceful above ground over Washington's fragrant
mowed Memorial lawns and air of sweet freedom in Spring
A mile away it's festive because there sacrifice is buried here.

At the wall, the communion wall, the reflecting wall,
this Wall black as the sun in a dead soldier's eye
an obelisk moving a shadow passes late
like the hand of a clock over rows of fresh Maine Pine wreaths
and ribbons tied by many hands now flutter in a breeze
over these warrior's sleep here returned to the homeland

Now again heavy hearts are pumping life and begin to leave
carrying soldier reminders onward so none have died in vain
and swearing that we will always honor our son's dreams
of lives sacrificed and futures more than their medals

We wander homewards now and wonder what have we learned?
And I am less because I know we have learned fast to forget
fast to repeat, and quick to avert our eyes to screens of trivia
blind to see and deaf to hear the soldiers written on the Wall

by Charles Eastland
(Author: The Fire Poems)