Petersburg Battlefield Trail

By Leah S. Jones

Sage shadows dance across moss beds draped on crying stone
where men fell to their last gasping breath.

Visions of loved ones in their eyes
blurred into tears they wish they had cried before it became too late

before the world went dark
went cold
went marching.

In the old encampment hut, made of felted logs
the years when all the men went falling, are gone, and now men run

with wireless headphones in the essence of war faded into ash.
Stroller full of red-faced child, rolls over the men shot dead.

A battle that raged across farm and field
is now all fast-food a Wi-Fi

Sitting with the ghosts at the battlefield, a mile walk from home.
I always
feel more accompanied by ghosts than I do by people

and how they forget time
forget war and vanity and
forget all the death.

In the fall, the trail is covered in amber and blood
And the skies push through the ceilings of oak and wailing echoes.

I look up and wonder if soldiers saw the same view
beyond howitzer smoke and jagged injury.

To walk those trails, imagining who is walking with me, I see
a draymen perhaps, missing home, or livery stable keeper.

The creek beds where toads sit with bellies sunk in algae creeks –
is it there you did lie with grey last breath and a plea for redemption?

I see skirmishes ahead, and men advancing in flanks.
If I could hear your voices, would it be Johnny Reb chantin’ cross enemy lines
Or wailing men –
or silence still

In the carcass of war, do you still hold a sabre – or pick flowers instead
as you roam the lush beds of tangled thread moss. Do you

listen to my troubles and think
how lucky to have such worries. Did your

strands of hair fall like arms and exist
in a robins nest? Or are you all gone now?

Each time I come in my tied up sneakers and ache of longing
you sit in crawling crabwise light, on decorticated stump
Waiting.

We walk, I release thoughts, and I know
someone listens.

For all ghosts want is to feel seen, and
so do I.
On those quiet, acorn fallen trails.

****

Leah S. Jones is a full-time military spouse, mother, and gardener. She has a master's in Public Administration and published her first book of poems titled “Hibriten” in 2019. Leah was nominated for Author of the Year with ACHI Magazine in 2019 and received the Editors Choice Award from the same publication. Her family is currently stationed in Georgia, though their hearts reside in North Carolina.