The desert moon looked down on us
From a sparkling starlit sky
Two lonely weary travelers
Just my Naomi and I

The empty Pecos Valley now
Down from the" Great Divide"
Time and again I would have quit
But for Naomi at my side

We looked in vain for natures' gifts
From the cruel and stubborn soil
Many fortunes made out there
Of gold of silver,of oil!

We worked all through the daylight hours
Beneath the blazin' sun
We loaded wagons,tired as hell
And always on the run

I noticed somethin' yesterday
Out the corner of my eye
Naomi staggers once or twice
And gave a sort of sigh

I realize this cannot go on
To do so would be cruel
I know it's kind of heartless but
I'll need another mule

It's quiet now,no sound I hear
The big guns rest,and so does fear
The snow has hardened with the dead
Blue-ish figures,battle-bred

Silently I wait for dawn
I wonder if I'll live that long
I see the wound a crystal-red
A while before,oh how it bled

The pain is dull
I'm cold and numb
When warm black sleep begins to come
And summons dreamscapes,one by one

There before me,row by row
Frozen dead men seem to grow
A horrid garden in the snow
Grim distorted blackish flowers
I cannot say if theirs or ours

I do not know why this was done
I cannot say who lost or won
I hear it now,that final call
In battles' rage we had to fall

In death we're brothers
       Brothers All!

It was dark in the mountains of Sollum
Near Benghazi close by the sea
And the shadows of early September
They cling to the dark Euka tree

The night fell softly around us
The dunes brought a cool restful peace
The skies list their Orange-bursting thunder
As the shell-fire would finally cease

Our dead,(yes alas there were many)
Burning on with a smell oh so foul
Was mixed with the odor of dying
And the final expelling of bowel

We waited,(we numbered just five now)
Of the hundred that came to this place
While a victory we never doubted
It's now bitter finish we face

Our names and this battle forgotten
Again 'neath the soft desert moon
A lover and there his beloved
They rest by the old Moorish ruin

The desert will cover our presence
In less than a lifetime or so
O'er our graves the Bedouin wanders
And the laboring caravans go

I slept in a garden of mushrooms
And dreamed the most elegant dream
You were a Golden Hibiscus
And I was a poor Navy Bean

I snapped and you hardly noticed
You were charmed by the trees high above
Never once in your elegant splendor
Would you notice a poor bean in love

'Round your roots my pods would meander
You huddled as sun would go down
In twilight a bean seems no grander
Never chosen corsage for a gown

We'll die off when winters' upon us
The garden all gone with the snows
Maybe next Spring I'll come back an Orchid
In my dreams! Well one never knows.