IN THE WILDERNESS

  IN THE WILDERNESS

             
               For the 104th NY Volunteers, Saunder's Field,
                    529 engaged; 23 killed; 118 wounded; 114 missing.
	
I stood on your battlefields.
I heard the screams.
I smelled the smoke.
I felt the terror. 
I looked out on
 
            the same blue sky as they did,
and the earthworks thrown
                up by a passing century
     were overrun as quickly as 
                     the trenches down the road.
Deep in Virginia,
           
              on a peaceful    
     farmer's field, where not even
a cow grazed, in this absolute
           middle of nowhere,
far from our manic streets and the
       noise that means
                   home, I found

            a memorial to my fellow
New Yorkers, a moment's
             heroism scribed in
         stone, in this place
                         where something 
      once happened, and
                 whispering, "Thank you,"
                       was routed by 
    cannonades
                   of silence.
                            

The Wilderness Civil War Battlefield
Fredericksburg, Va.
October 2000