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To the Wayside Cemetery at Dawn

With the anguish and uncertainty of my marrow, I have awakened once more,
so I travel to meet it for the dawn -
to a land of Wollesons and Wollersons, of Sullivans and Hodges;
I travel to a land afloat upon a sea of dry blood

Perhaps the grass once stretched far and full here.
But now it is but a blanket, threadbare here and there,
To the chills of ash and dust.

Through patches of earth, through the very pores of stone,
Dawn is now arisen to find
Their grasp upon the day a’ glare.

Our joys and sufferings are theirs
As much as they are mine and ours.

Between a rusted mold and an unshaped future
Man is mortified and still.
When can tomorrow be ours alone?
Where but your wisest whispers and gentlest touches stand?

The sun is bright now,
Too bright to see
Without the blinding pain.

The day, still young, draws me on,
Yet I am certain of uncertainty alone.

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Across a field of wheat by which I travel to the day
Pocks despair this April week’s winds and rains:

Rise and face this day proud
For the mind is the engineer of empires
And the soul is time itself - the conqueror of history,
And the champion of death.