sacrament of dust

 
 
“Lo! in that house of misery
A lady with a lamp I see
Pass through the glimmering gloom,
And flit from room to room.” (“Santa Filomina”  Longfellow)
 
 
a soldier dies and far away a mother cries
a sister feels a sudden chill
a girl with apple cheeks will never carry his seed.
 
angels are not always attired in white.
they have worn confederate gray, union blue,
olive green,
arid khaki, pale as the desert sand.
 
brave daughter of Nightingale
who holds the hand of a fallen warrior,
soothes his fevered brow as he passes
into his darkness. gently.
 
she lowers her eyes
and makes the sign of the cross.
she knows that each new death
is a birth into a holier place.
 
dreams linger without tongues in a monument of dust.
memories rode a seraphim wind,
through so many liquid summers and bellowing winters.
 
time freezes;
it mellows.