Sleeping face upwards in the fields all night, You’ll hear the din of a thousand baleful cries
Among the dusky sea of identical monuments That like a poor idle regiment are the Forlorn divisions of stone.
O Lord, do you see these wounds we carry How we wander up and down lamenting Like gypsies nicknaming the stars And even as the unemployed solder walks the melancholy path And bleeds tears for conflict – we pray for the past to return But persist through pedantic expressions Living the tale of the pale physicians; Silence and sorrow to never entertain the glory of hope I will do penance to angry Gods and Wear my scars like the old lion Cleave my heart, mar the flesh To bask and howl in moonlight awhile Then Could I heal to hear The voice of God Vox Dei Whispered blessings Now only in my dreams Clean and clear Mending souls Pure and perfect O, the government of heaven has heard And I know now In this light natural now supernatural That we will do nothing but melt our spirits together, To solder up the holes in our souls And ponder on Goodbyes to Rose Who goes sleeping face upward in the fields all night.
She will hear the din of a thousand baleful cries Turn and turn to laughter and praises And glide along the silver sea of identical monuments This happy regiment, These sweet soldiers of stone O Lord do you see this meat of mortality That has transformed and passed on These human hand that will go to the madmen there To those sunbathing beggars and lazy hedge keepers Sleeping face upwards in the fields all night.
j. noguera 4/98
Notes: Published: The El Paso Herald April 20, 1998 With thanks to Thomas Nashe.