Battlefield

Mid-October, and around the rocks of Devil’s Den
legions of cabbage white butterflies march
in wild disorder, like scattered clouds of ashes
in the late-day light. Under the blank staring eyes
of bronze generals we negotiate winding
dirt paths among boulders encrusted with shapeless
patches like grey-green lace: when I visited
Gettysburg as a child with my parents, I imagined
those splotches on the rocks to be long-weathered
remnants of spattered blood. I know now
they’re lichens, fungi and algae interdependent,
forming a perfect union, and the real remains
of those three savage, scorching days
twelve-pound cannons belching thunder
mortar shells whistling and exploding
men and horses down, the wounded
crawling screaming cursing
are less obvious. At the outskirts of that regiment
of massive stones, a line of golden foxtails nods
in the breeze; a mockingbird whistles its contorted song,
mosquitoes whine past our ears. On the hillside
near Little Round Top withered stems of Solomon’s
seal bearing shreds of twisted, frost-bleached
leaves lie flattened on the ground, their red fruits
spilling like tears down the grassy bank,
deepening shadows assembling around them
in pools of blue and grey.