Memorials

In the mailbox this Friday morning: Today in 1863 Lincoln delivered the now famous Gettysburg Address, honoring the dead of the Civil War.

158 years later we still kill one another in wars of innumerable number, nature, and cause and use the anniversary occasions to continue to honor the dead as if we had no idea how to end the bloodshed.

At the Un-National Monument along the Canadian Border

by – William Stafford, The Way It Is: New & Selected Poems, (Graywolf Press, 1998).

This is the field where the battle did not happen,

where the unknown soldier did not die.

This is the field where grass joined hands,

where no monument stands,

and the only heroic thing is the sky.

Birds fly here without any sound,

unfolding their wings across the open.

No people killed—or were killed—on this ground

hallowed by neglect and an air so tame

that people celebrate it by forgetting its name.