Thin wisps, like smoke,
that fly from the fire,
a mist late at night,
broken down, but higher,
flies past the face
of a moon I desire.

Deep in this night
two bodies aspire –
Venus and Luna,
in search for a fire.

Between we three,
an army expires –
It’s Robert E. Lee
and the troops we admire:
Thin wisps of gray smoke
drawn by the fire.

They swirl down in pills,
from deep darkened hills,
into their fate,
badly begotten.

This mass,
this fume,
is all
that now looms,
of an army
never forgotten.

©2011, Marvin Welborn.

Revised 5 July 2014.

Original Publication: Union Station and Paradigm Shift; Xlibris, March 2012.