I yearn for a day like that quiet room,
where rifles rested and the shouting ceased,
where history leaned forward, not to boast,
but to listen for the sound of peace, again.
Not triumph pounding its chest,
not banners drunk on blood and dust,
but a table, plain wood, ink, and hands
steady enough to choose mercy.
Let us return to that hour
when the war learned how to end -
when the victors did not sneer,
and the defeated
were not stripped
naked in the street.
Horses went home.
Men went home.
Names once cursed were spoken again softly,
as if the nation feared breaking itself further.
No cheers split the air.
No drums demanded one last shot
Or fatal wound.
Only the hush of a country
exhaling after holding its breath
for four years.
Mr. Grant stood like a door left open,
not backward into forgetting,
not forward into vengeance,
but wide enough for both sides
to walk through
without lowering their eyes.
And Lee - tired, composed, unbowed -
closed the book without tearing the pages,
showing us that surrender can still carry dignity,
that endings need not be cruel to be final.
I ache for that restraint today.
For leaders who know when silence
Is stronger than noise.
For victors that refuse to humiliate.
For endings that stitch instead of tear.
Bring me back to Appomattox,
not for the war,
Or the reality it clashed over,
but for the way it stopped -
when the future was chosen
with mercy.
And bound hands
were free.