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Battlefield

Battlefield Mid-October, and around the rocks of Devil’s Den legions of cabbage white butterflies march in wild disorder, like scattered clouds of ashes in the late-day light. Under the blank staring eyes of bronze generals we negotiate winding dirt paths among boulders encrusted with shapeless patches like grey-green lace: when I visited Gettysburg as a child with my parents, I imagined those splotches on the rocks to be long-weathered remnants of spattered blood. I know now they’re lichens, fungi and algae interdependent, forming a perfect union, and the real remains of those three savage, scorching days twelve-pound cannons belching thunder mortar shells whistling and exploding men and horses down, the wounded crawling screaming cursing are less obvious. At the outskirts of that regiment of massive stones, a line of golden foxtails nods in the breeze; a mockingbird whistles its contorted song, mosquitoes whine past our ears. On the hillside near Little Round Top withered stems of Solomon’s seal bearing shreds of twisted, frost-bleached leaves lie flattened on the ground, their red fruits spilling like tears down the grassy bank, deepening shadows assembling around them in pools of blue and grey. CArol g r Am Et BAu Er http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Appalachian Review University of North Carolina Press

Battlefield

Grametbauer, Carol
Appalachian Review , Volume 42 (2) – Jul 11, 2014
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Publisher
University of North Carolina Press
Copyright
Copyright © Berea College
ISSN
1940-5081

Abstract

Mid-October, and around the rocks of Devil’s Den legions of cabbage white butterflies march in wild disorder, like scattered clouds of ashes in the late-day light. Under the blank staring eyes of bronze generals we negotiate winding dirt paths among boulders encrusted with shapeless patches like grey-green lace: when I visited Gettysburg as a child with my parents, I imagined those splotches on the rocks to be long-weathered remnants of spattered blood. I know now they’re lichens, fungi and algae interdependent, forming a perfect union, and the real remains of those three savage, scorching days twelve-pound cannons belching thunder mortar shells whistling and exploding men and horses down, the wounded crawling screaming cursing are less obvious. At the outskirts of that regiment of massive stones, a line of golden foxtails nods in the breeze; a mockingbird whistles its contorted song, mosquitoes whine past our ears. On the hillside near Little Round Top withered stems of Solomon’s seal bearing shreds of twisted, frost-bleached leaves lie flattened on the ground, their red fruits spilling like tears down the grassy bank, deepening shadows assembling around them in pools of blue and grey. CArol g r Am Et BAu Er

Journal

Appalachian Review – University of North Carolina Press

Published: Jul 11, 2014

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