I cannot escape you
your voices haunt me
in the quiet of summer mornings
when I expect only the sound
of gentle breezes through my ash, my oak
when I would, if I could, close my eyes
and enter the world, of forgetting
your dirges call forth
the delirious dances of the dead
those slain in the summer fields, of my youth
without your mourning song
to honor their passing
without the praying processions,
the grandiloquent eulogies,
they had
only the sizzling silence
after the staccato storm
of our rapid rifle fire
until now, when I thought
my guilt was assuaged
until I listened, and
heard your doleful cries