Monday, May 19, 2014

5380. AND BURIED HIM WHERE HE FELL

AND BURIED HIM 
WHERE HE FELL
I don't respect the past; never have. All the calamities
of manhood dwell therein : campfire boys on a Civil War 
field, dead and dying, right there where they fell. The
hot cannon still lurches the horses. Animals skewered
o'er the field. At least here I am safe again  -  my good
dog sleeps at my side. This is my own wondrous world 
and I want it and I'll take it and I'll keep it too. 'Drum Taps :
Vigil Strange On the Field I Kept One Night.' My son,
my son, that is America. I am at least at a certain peace;
not crying yet but sad. Yet those, I notice, who do handle
this past  -  with their sacred and their reverential gloves
  -  they tell us nothing of today. They merely bow and
genuflect to that which was, deeming it right to tell us
too to so revere. I don't respect the past. The past
is already there.

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