Mathew Brady



Civil War Battlefields and Broken Dams


When kids are little

visit Rand McNally prompted sites of note.

National Parks, Monuments, Civil War battlefields.

Why go to the Nation's Capitol to show children Democracy

and not stop at Gettysburg?

So the site today of raging battle exposed,

invited introspection

long line of rubble rock across the beanfield

after the dam broke

scour hole below and I was with the Louisiana boys behind

that long rock wall that marked the cornfields edge.

The roar of cannon, smoke, dark water rising

blood, Iowa soil here, such a defensible position rock rubble

if only one stays down, but here to drown were you so foolish

or to drown in blood so far from home Louisiana boy

behind the wall.

But this no Monument to what?

Here a field and the D-9 pushes the rocks to the hole

and again as a field the story fades.


By Phil Specht on July 28, 2010