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
    

All written material © Bill Schechter, 2016
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