04-23-2024, 11:46 PM
An African American in a knitted cap
poses beside wooden stretcher
piled with the remains of soldiers
killed at Cold Harbor, bloody climax
to Lee’s long delaying action
to keep the dying Confederacy alive.
Five skulls are balanced atop the
the mass of bone and rotted uniforms,
an errant leg, still clothed and booted
hangs off the stretcher, as though
it were trying to walk away from the scene.
In the background, four more workers
with shovels continue their task
digging up the shallow graves where
the dead had been hastily interred.
A glass window transparency that belies
the fury and bloodshed of those days,
a two week battle where neither side
could do much but kill each other.
Drained of color, yellow tinted
a tribute to a leftover Hell.
https://www.loc.gov/resource/ppmsca.35035/
poses beside wooden stretcher
piled with the remains of soldiers
killed at Cold Harbor, bloody climax
to Lee’s long delaying action
to keep the dying Confederacy alive.
Five skulls are balanced atop the
the mass of bone and rotted uniforms,
an errant leg, still clothed and booted
hangs off the stretcher, as though
it were trying to walk away from the scene.
In the background, four more workers
with shovels continue their task
digging up the shallow graves where
the dead had been hastily interred.
A glass window transparency that belies
the fury and bloodshed of those days,
a two week battle where neither side
could do much but kill each other.
Drained of color, yellow tinted
a tribute to a leftover Hell.
https://www.loc.gov/resource/ppmsca.35035/