We can see the field through
the eyes of crows that perch
at its fringes, their dark orbs
fixed on fallen men. Or smell
what happened here years later,
when rain soaks the earth again.
Or in our foraging, come across
a spent bullet, a fragment of
half-buried bone.

We can allow time and space
distance; names to become
names, nothing more.
Photographs fade or are lost
among shelves and volumes
of things: philosophy, theology,
treatises on science, romance
novels, poetry. Newspapers
collect in dusty archives.

Some songs are remembered,
but context is an elusive bird
to capture once it is gone.
Many do not understand those
who cling to these events, trying
to save unraveling tapestries
by grasping at all the threads.
What becomes easier to
understand is why most people
put all these things behind them.