Uncivil Hours

FROM THE INTRO Long I've plotted an epic poem, a poem to stand in relation to my native country as those broad stripes stand in relation to our flag. The subject would have to be the Civil War, of course; it was then, as since no time since the Revolution, that the country grew articulate in self-definition. Lincoln was the poet we elected president. The Civil War generation was the most letter-writing cohort of warriors America has ever produced. Brother fought brother, fathers...
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FROM THE INTRO
Long I've plotted an epic poem, a poem to stand in relation to my native country as those broad stripes stand in relation to our flag. The subject would have to be the Civil War, of course; it was then, as since no time since the Revolution, that the country grew articulate in self-definition. Lincoln was the poet we elected president. The Civil War generation was the most letter-writing cohort of warriors America has ever produced. Brother fought brother, fathers took up arms against their sons, and slaves escaped to return fire at their former masters--and then forgive them when they stood in post-war relation to each other as citizens.

UNCIVIL HOURS
What tragedy befell us in those days
Is not mine alone to toll, to tell--
A thousand voices, a million all
Wailing in abominable chorus could not
Convey the terror, anxiety and waste
Of those dead days.

Whatever one man can carry
Out of Hell, I'll carry to tell you.
What words cannot do, let bones
Knitted by raw time at the breaks
Display in mute witness.

Assemble!
Ghosts of a time not yet made witless,
Armies whose worn shoulders show
As increasing mist, gather without regard
To blue or grey, and let your old voices
Roll coldly now that once had the hot
Imprint of youth.