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A lone soldier staggers through wind-scoured drifts,

Flintlock smoke yet twining round stiffened fingers,

He has parted red spirits.

No

voice answers this frostbound crossing,

Only the brittle groan of ice underfoot,

Where boughs droop low as sorrowful witnesses,

And distant cannon’s echo grows faint as memory’s sigh.

He sinks amid uniforms stiff with old promises,

The foe’s last cry now lost on a wraithlike wind,

Dark oaks loom like silent judges,

Limbs bowed beneath a leaden sky,

He kneels where ice and iron have met,

Blood and breath slow to a distant shore,

No gentle hands to close his eyes,

Just the hush of ravens drifting low.

A ragged coat upon his frame,

Threadbare dreams of liberty’s spark,

He fought for words he held so dear,

Now scattered on the winds’ keen bark.

What flag remains once blood is spilled?

What glory warms the corpse’s bed?

In fields where muskets coughed their truth,

The soil binds silence to the dead.