Copyright © 2009 Ernest Bloom.
Who shall recall, I wonder, our unbending attendance in these
hummocks and knolls in one hundred, in two hundred years?
Who shall still speak of the long, discontented days
of perambulating debate that premised our noble duty,
the boisterous exchanges of stupefied opinion and passion
that's seemingly necessary to shore up the will for what
unimaginable horrors are yet to be encountered and confronted,
for good or for ill? History's drama unfolds always from
resolved action, and all forerunning measured debate's at last
burned up to ash on the hearth. And even should all of our most
secret and grand. cherished aspirations and dreams
be accomplished in the months to come, shall our descendants
still speak of our actions taken in this place and, if they do,
with what reverence or honor? I wonder. For even the bravest
acts of men are diluted in the coursings of time, and the sweat
and blood of history are reduced to brief jottings of dates and places
and, now and again, the name of a man, whose soul is more usually
effaced even before he himself is dead.
But now, in this moment, in this ordained place, I am a man,
alive, vital! My heart beats, my breath draws the same air
as will yours, my descendants, though I was destined,
as you too will be, to unravel quickly enough out of the homespun
of your narratives and folk tales. Looking back then
across the decades, down the corridors of centuries,
know as a certainty that there was once a real man
of sinewy flesh and bone such as yourself who stood upon
the low ramparts of an earthen redoubt one warm, quiet morning
under hushed stars, bracing against sealed turbulence to come.
And how will you judge our choices, if any reflect
upon them at all? Will our advance to this hill in retrospect prove
fortuitous or disastrous? Of such chances are all wars made
and forever afterwards second-guessed. I am content to surrender
that speculation and judgment to you. My defense is the same
as that of all men who live only in the present: I have done
that which seems best to me at the time. I have adapted
my strategies to the events as I have found them
on the ground. All else must unfold from that.
To our left the approaches are exposed and must be fortified:
a vulnerability less apparent during the night's earlier debate.
I've dispatched a work detail to raise a breastwork. The sun
is risen and the heat is up, and suddenly the guns commence
to fire with vigor from the British ships and Copp's Hill
on the Boston peninsula. My men, who are farmers who fancy
themselves devoted soldiers, look up from their entrenching activities,
and the fear is clear in their faces. The unassailable calculus
of the machinery of war has yet to emerge from their
patriotic, romantic passions. Mounting the parapet I commence to stroll
its length, mindful of the steadying effect this must have on the men.
I regard the ships below us, the light on the waters, the rising
advance of the sun. The guns continue to sound. It is unlikely
death will find me in these moments, but of course the possibility
is always present. Warfare is mathematical. Probabilities
inform choices, not sentimentality. An army and its commanders
unexposed to risk are of no use. Behind and below me I know the men
regard me with words like courage and bravery filling their minds, but
there is no courage or bravery in my mind. There are only calculations,
and the necessity of doing what must be done. Plenty of time
for courage later, and its antithesis.
No. In this moment I think only of futures undreamed, of the children
of children as yet unborn. My thoughts are not patriotic, but genealogic.
Our lives and their actions are not historical narratives but strings
of unrelated episodes, and at every point we're confronted by a panoply
of choices that we must choose from. Have I chosen correctly today?
This is a question for later generations to debate. I have no such luxury.
I look down into the east. The breastworks require more work.
The ships continue to shell us. How long, I wonder, before
the real assault begins? Whose clock shall prevail this day?
Hm, I realized I haven't really seen many first person narrative works from you and those which I saw were largely spoken by you, so to speak. Here, you've managed to instill a new personality, a new psyche and history entirely into the vessel of the verse. The surroundings are as vibrant as ever, the tension and the uncertainty, the strain on the life and the almost Existential anxiety for one's fame and posterity- all these make this a multi-dimensional story in a very good form indeed. The many details are especially of worth, the locations like Copp's Hill etc. You've successfully merged reflection with 'action'. The thoughts of the speaker are not at all detached from the very fabric of his existence and his immediate surroundings. No, they are in fact the very fruits of the nurture and stimuli. I'm glad you didn't make this too American, for other nations' sake you know. In fact, the main character says himself he doesn't care about patriotism. He cares about the now and the impact of the now on the future. He cares about the risks we all of right must take in life, about the war for survival, welfare and existence itself that stands as a foundament for the whole of what we perceive as consciousness. This could be WWII or the Crimean War or a scenario entirely unrelated to the military. This could be a man like any other, you, me and they and that is worth appraisal.
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