Winter Twilight On An Ancient Battlefield Poem by Daniel Brick

You arrived early on this one-time
battlefield, and encountering no opposition,
declared yourself victor. I arrived after you,
and saw your back turned to me. Had you seen me,
and turned away? Or have your been staring,
preoccupied with grief, at something over there
where an ancient battle was decided in favor of
an upstart, a malcontent, a traitor. In those days
began a weeping which swept through people and their
children, made domestic animals ornery and infected

nature with dark dawns and dreary days. Are you wrapped
in that sorrow still? My eyes strain to see you whole
in the diminishing light. The iced lake we stand on
hides its danger in snow drifts, but two heavy bodies
and the weightless ghost of the murdered king may yet
collapse these wintry defenses and then we will all
be losers... We are as far from each other as we
will ever be. No shared triumph, or disaster, will
bond us. Reconciliation is as remote as the crack
of spring thaw in the frozen air... It might be easier

to resolve our impasse with column after column of knights
in heavy armor, their horses festooned with symbolic plumes,
both men and horses eager for the clash of arms
bashing and smashing their way to victory and death.
They believe the ancient wisdom embodied in water and rock of
this land: if you have questions, they will be answered;
if you have answers, they will be confirmed. If they wonder,
Is this life I am living real? they go into combat to find out.
For us no such simple solution exists, and as we stand here
a whole season of stillness and silence has passed us by.

I wait for you here
in this cold region for body and mind,
trying not to look like I'm waiting for you.
I hear a faint sound of shifting waters
below the surface we stand on. You must hear
it too. Is that the last sound we will share?
When you finally turn to face me there will be
only be footprints in the snow, and
in the distance a blot of color
that is my silent departure across the frozen grass.