The General

The days became hours while the hours
became days wherein the seconds fell not
As grain but the drifting snows that now kissed
the spangled stripes of the General’s mute

wizened air. O!–how he had most suffered
through the pierced months of steady retreats
and deafening betrayals that had brought
Hell’s tremendous chords and early flowers,

that now merely defined the red renown
of what might have been his stiff company’s
finest hour. The General sat on
the broken bell to a smoldering tower

where somehow he felt he had sunk to the
bloody trunk of the sea, like a great statue
held by the solace of the sky-wide water, becoming
the silence of what never would be seen.