The Third Blue Cohort

[ladylight]

(army division that shot Yurahaina - destroyed in Night of Fires [obviously not same men; too many years separating] couldn't be a contemporary Talton piece, not nationalistic enough - modern?)

How far we marched -
across a mountain made of paper, out from mortal infancy,
reborn from ink: a phoenix of improbable resolve.
We did -not- resolve to do; we did, no more.
For love of the arc and twist of leading life
and love of the unborn breeze of unborn breath
we marched and wrecked the silver queen in fallen ethers.

We paid a price measured in absences and silences,
carried each cooling weight shoulder to shoulder
as shoulder to shoulder had walked the iron lines.
They will say, hail to youth and courage!
though neither long endured the burning sky-rage
or the give of crimson and the take of airy blue.
They will say, holy was the sacrifice!
though human bodies lain upon an altar would be crime
and 'holy' cannot compass love and terror cold in sleep.

They will say and say and say
in deviating lines of truth and reason
for recollection's feather-fingers hold only a lifespan's gaze
and few have lived to see, and fewer speak.
And now there are less.
And now there are less.
And now there are less.