Gettysburg

Gettysburg

The peacock’s spurs are caught again
in the diamond chickenwire of his low
slanted pen. Nobody bothers anymore
to hammer the sagging barn.

Summer visitors regard the old farm from cars
without chrome, up on the hastily paved path—
if they look at all. There’s so much
else to see, burnished things, and battlefields

all look the same. But it’s here, this land,
where the war’s easy sepia finds an end
and a form: like us, the shallow rust-red soil
blows off for York, for Philadelphia, the coast,

and pasture erodes to bone. A black walnut’s roots
pierce the buried limbs of our grandfathers’ fallen
spruce grove. The caterpillar inches along, lost
in its sad accordion hymn.