Memorial Day Bogota NJ 5/25/98
Angela and Alessandra squat in the gutter
Senseless of the (now) heroic dead among us
For whom the whispered speeches take the air
And mingle with the patient shifting feet
Of hunched auditors standing huddled
In the moist hollows of this gentle bower
Concetta and her sister conscripts
Softly speak the elegiac lines
That grant each ghost another final hour
And after them a minister and priest
In strict apportionment of market share
Bring Christ to bear on man’s unease
And then the tolling of the dead
While a pink and taffeta flower child
(Who thinks no doubt that war is mild)
Places poppies on a wooden cross to a
Legionnaire’s intoning of their names and wars
And finally a bugler lamely marshals taps
Then morning damply abdicates to noon
With reminders of the 2 PM parade
And refreshments at the Legion’s door
The waters of memory flee the village shore
We drift off to our cars and dimpled houses
Ennobled chastened or perplexed
By this gentle ritual regret
Trying to imagine the storied dead
Those warriors for whom the poppies
Stand so tall before the Borough Hall
But we are powerless to recall
Their adumbrated lives at all
5/25-7/13/98
Copyright 1998 by Maurice Leiter
Posted with permission.
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