Visit to Antietam ~ We Are All Brothers

[Charles Cingolani]

Visit to Antietam

We Are All Brothers

by Charles L. Cingolani

I

 

Alone I arrive, walking from Frederick

over the gaps, across gentle hills

out onto a knoll

overlooking this burnished landscape.

Before me I see countless writhing rows

of indiscernible shapes gathered

in terrible rituals mid fire and smoke

that darken the sun.

From distant corners I hear

the rhythmic thudding of cannon,

and from fields astir with figures converging

the eery muffled rumbling of drums.

 

From behind, hoofing sod aloft

couriers gallop past

straightway up to lines of men

where a ruffled slanting flag is held,

to a figure mounted, with sword drawn,

about to unleash his flexing array

to collide with columns coming on.

 

I watch them shift, align, then clash head-on

as distant volleys crackle in long orange ribbons

where smoke is rising—

after which shattered lines rejoin

like healed limbs, smaller now but whole,

to lunge once more

into spiraling bursts of yellowy orange.

 

Is that a cornfield on the distant plain

not far from where a white church stands?

I see stalks moving like men

advancing and falling back in wild infernal whirling,

while savage yelling rips through space.

Before my eyes that field of buff cornstalks

being reaped now by frenzied swathings

slashed now then shredded,

ravaged in fiery geysers

spewing red and orange.

 

I see you, men in blue, your backs to me—

barrels and bayonets glistening in the sun

your lines plunging forward like waves,

cresting and curling to splash in smoky spume

onto a road that cuts the fields in two—

Facing you there in sunken trenches

long streaks of reddish gold

bursting in continuing ordered alternation

repelling your forward drive--

You fall where carnage itself piling high

staves off all further senseless slaughter.

 

And far off to my left a long snakelike movement

bloats at a bridge

behind which the hills with fire erupting

become hell's crucible

spurting its ghastly flow of fiery orange

what seemed to be a thousand pores

down at that stony arched crossing.

On this side amassed,

clotted lines surge and retract

ramrodlike, propelling one small bluish artery

over into that brimming inferno

to thrust its way forward, unscathed,

as if 'twere led through a red fiery sea

inside some slender shielding sheath.

 

As they advance random shooting stutters,

from farther distance fired. Then of a sudden

out of nowhere at my left,

one last yelping onslaught, one final vicious blitz.

What had advanced seeks refuge now

falling back to that bridge,

as if to protecting water.

 

As with the suddenness of their arrival,

the spirited gray chargers now quit the field,

scampering up over their hill

to regroup and await the hour

of fiery retribution.

 

Then a moaning quiet settles

over the twitching fields

while nightfall settles in...

 

II

 

From what vision am I awakening?

These are but fields, hills.

There a church, a bridge.

 

I must linger here, listen to silence, hear it speak—

of homage, of gratitude, of loss.

Silence hovering over sacred soil,

its canopy spread over rituals once performed here

to form a sanctuary to enshrine that offering,

that atonement, that oblation

for a had-to-be war of our own making.

 

Forbid all levity here! Bar all distraction!

Ban every cloaked entrepreneur!

Granite, even marble disturb.

There is no enactment, no fitting into frames.

 

Silence alone befits this hallowed space—

. . . as does the hidden violet

that blooms for you in spring,

for you who left your life here

that dire September seventeen

eighteen hundred and sixty-two.

You, unknown, unsung brothers mine

from Georgia, Connecticut and Carolina.

 

. . . as does the windhover riding on air

on wingsbeats stalwart and soft

holding perfectly still above the plot where you fell,

a crest of valor, a living marker cross

emblazoned on high for you valiant brothers mine

from Maryland and Iowa and Tennessee.

 

. . . as does the lark climbing aloft

on eager wings as morning dawns

trilling scales of gratitude to you

for daring to die for convictions you held,

contrary, insoluble-- that war alone could settle

for those before you, for those who followed,

determined brothers of mine

from Texas, Mississippi and Colorado.

 

. . . as does that ancient tree on the slope

still standing there on weary feet,

the agéd veteran, presenting arms,

saluting you whom he saw fall,

himself to fall, last of all,

gallant brothers mine

from Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Arkansas.

 

. . . as does the solitary girl

walking across the fields with grace,

her head erect, her feet treading light

on soil moistened with a spirit soaked into it

with your blood there shed.

She takes strength from it to live

despite loss, grief and pain.

Your gift to her, dear brothers mine

from Wisconsin and Alabama and Maine.

 

. . . as does the murmuring stream

that winds through these Maryland fields,

that living, pulsing emblem,

that watery banner unfurled,

Holocaust inscribed thereon but Antietam called,

that plaintive name for the deed you rendered:

the cleansing required to be one,

to fuse us together,

cherished brothers all together

from Virginia, Ohio and New Jersey.

 

III

 

As I turn now to leave

mighty towers of white clouds rise

mid rumblings of distant thunder off to the west

beyond these silent fields.

 

On parting the pace quickens.

There is no laming.

Led by a knowing hand to this temple of silence

a fresh awareness of what here was wrought

has been instilled, awakened.

The bravery, honor, courage,

the horror, pain, the dying—

knowledge such as this waxes,

transforms, makes happen.

 

Farewell, holy fields. Farewell, brothers mine

whom I have found in the stillness

enshrining this hallowed ground.

I found you alive, arisen,

have heard your voices

begging, clamorous, pleading

that what was here begun

be completed, be done.

 

That finally we become one

in our thinking, our dealings,

in the living of our lives—

that the struggle find end

in the change required

of heart and mind

to make us worthy

of this our home, our land.

 

 

Source

 

Edited August 30, 2020 by Charles Cingolani