A Letter from the Front

There is so much to write, so much of death and dying, So much of anguish in the dark and stricken mind: Another city fallen, a shattered fort retaken— I cannot write for burning eyes grown blind.

But tell me, tell me quickly, swift as lightning, If summer’s on the Georgia fields again, Crepe myrtle thick with pink and sudden crimson, Their hot and crinkly blossoms steaming in the rain?

Tell me, tell me if the bleeding hearts of melons Lie secret-like beneath the ribbons of the corn, If still, O still the crickets wake the starlight, The Chattahoochee reddens in the land where I was born?

Still does the quiet duskfall purple up the doorway, The cotton stretch its acres warm and white; Is there yet one (O eyes, O lips remembered!), Who turns and reaches for me in the restless night?

I wait your letters as the dark the sunrise; There is so little I can ever say— My words have blood, the smell of death upon them; Yours, moonlight from a world long centuries away.