These blue and these grey, these remnants of distant war Battled beneath us on spirals long turning, The sabers and bullets, the steel seeking iron, Deep in old blood bearing breaths dissipated, These Tennessee battlefields stand consecrated, The conflict still fought that my blue and your grey At last now can meet on the field of our choosing. Her hair coded signal, a gold coin that flashed From the hand of a general, tall on the boulder, The valley below, the union encircling, Oblivious to danger from fall or from gunshot. I stood there behind her a century-more later, Ready to follow her down should she falter, Taking a shot I can't bear now to look at. A truce signed in Georgia, a kiss swift and reckless Made in the shadows of buildings collapsing With sunset the time marked, the ducks making witness, Souls long sworn as enemies for one month forgetting Old vows made through bloodshed, made new ones, forsaking Past violences, broke bread and fed greedy birds, Casting bits on the water that did not return. What harm one goodbye, one week's march to the sea, What harm one farewell, one more hurting, With already one million before and to be, Already inseparable through centuries of parting? What harmful false knowledge, learned only in loss Irreversible, held through long barren life's postscript, Remembered, regretted, forgotten at birth. What form will you next take, what cold archetype Will you fill and give life to as I take the other, What roles shall we play, trading Lear and Cordelia, Judah and Israel, Lincoln and Lee, Cruel Pharaoh and Moses, our red rivers flowing Opaque and unseeing, our split torrents breaking Through wide-wandering deltas to similar seas? Erica, sleep now, for one lifetime forgetting The battle-lines drawn, your harsh duties forsaking, For one moment in history, sleep without waking, Make camp beneath clusters of sky-silver arrows. I shall stand watch for you, I, your sworn enemy, Shall this one night guard you, spear, water-jug taken, Shall sing you old songs of our battles together.