Champion Hill

Where cannonballs flew

Dragonflies flit

Above thick, green-standing water.
Where American boys
Were dismembered and died
Now ancient trees have fallen
Toppling the ground
The way their corpses did
More than a century and a half past.

I am not certain

What I came to see.
Perhaps I was seeking
A rend in the fabric of time
To glimpse the obscene carnage
And hear the fading echoes
Of dying men.
In retrospect
I would have felt
Pungent shame and
Puerile embarrassment.
The death of any man
Especially in war
Is a very private thing
Though it be on the most public forum.

All I saw

Was a lonely
Broken asphalt road
Bracketed by telephone poles
And trees
All smothered
In Spanish Moss.

All I heard
Was playing children
In the yards of double-wides
Set far off the road
Accompanied by cicadas
And barking yard dogs. 

No one but I remembered

That this seemingly innocent geography
Was guilty as hell
Or that, with little effort
One might unearth war’s accoutrements
Including human remains.

I came to see Champion Hill

But discovered
No champions
No hill.

I came 
A voyeur
And returned
A penitent.