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