Men Who Have Died In Battle

(reflecting on the removal of Confederate statues)

men who have died in battle
who have died for the worst of causes
called up persuaded that they were only

defending home ah God should they be pitied?
or should their effigies in stone be pulled up by the roots
hurled over the clinical balconies of the world.

where is pity then. where is pathos. mercy
that even their marble angels are gone.
so that they wander in sodden fields half ghostly

missing home.

so that what they felt in the last agonies
has no credence. or those who mourned for them.
it is expedient it seems

to kill them again.to rename the empty space.
to take away even their memory from earth.
to allow no unsanctioned tears

after all these years!
to have no pity that flowers grow out of the sockets of their eyes

still in some mass grave unrecognized
or blown to bits.
but righteousness in a narrow age

demands this.
that they must be slaughtered again.

mary angela douglas 23 july 2020