THE CORNFIELD

by Alfred D. Byrd

Antietam! Thither did the armies, blue and gray

Their uniforms, direct their march, their field

Of strife a cornlot, newly eared, that would yield

To them a harvest -- death. Their soldiers' due,

Amid the muskets' flash, in coinage true

Of crimson tone they'ld pay, the air being filled

With grapeshot from the cannons' mouth, when tilled

Ground at a run in charges alternate in hue

The lines of war-doomed men traversed. No scythe

By farmer wielded could in rows have laid

Them neater; by shell or bullet struck they writhed

And still they lay, their debt to duty paid.

Did all these die so that from edge to edge

Upon a path of corpses one might tread?

08-23-1985

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