Pickets

Watch ye, stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, be strong.

1 Corinthians 16:13

Fort Sumter, Appomattox, prelude days

last line of Section vi of The Dwelling Place

The stars around us gleam like bayonets
As though another foe had gathered there
To bear down on our army long dispersed
Behind us in the cold and smokeless air.

But word of that last order and parole
Arrived too late at this remotest post
Where we will stay forever on alert
In one thin line unbroken ghost to ghost.

Our mission was to be keen eyes and ears
Detecting all about our dwindling corps
Great movements of the northern men and guns
In numbers we had never seen before.

We slowed them down with skirmish and melee,
Sharpshooters targeting the brigadier,
Battery captain, bolder NCO,
Our crossfire rebel yells heard far and near.

At other times we felt a brotherhood
When pickets on both sides would sing the same
Old songs of mothers, sweethearts, peace, and home
Along the Rappahannock and the James.

And we would trade tobacco, coffee grounds
On tiny sailboats drifting with the wind
And in our common tongue whisper debates
On how the war had started and would end.

Yet on this line fighting has never ceased
Though arms were stacked and swords made shares again
For we must hold the earth that holds our bones
Under the winter snow and summer rain.

So now we load new Enfields of the air
With bulletpoints for sermon, parley, speech,
And in this war of words our aim is true:
The enemy is never out of reach.

And while we keep our watch we wait on those
Who one day may see what and as we see,
Then take their stand beside us to resist
The abolitionists of history.

We are not statues, names of schools and streets,
But guardians of memory and myth,
Gray wraiths that will not rest until our own
Confederate reckonings are reckoned with.

For only then will constellations gleam
Like distant campfires where two armies are
And we will see at last through twinkling tears
Star Spangled Banners bright with Stars and Bars.

David Middleton

David Middleton is Professor Emeritus of English and Poet in Residence Emeritus at Nicholls State University in Thibodaux, Louisiana. Middleton’s books of verse include The Burning Fields (LSU Press, 1991), As Far As Light Remains (The Cummington Press [Harry Duncan], 1993), Beyond the Chandeleurs (LSU Press, 1999), The Habitual Peacefulness of Gruchy: Poems After Pictures by Jean-François Millet (LSU Press, 2005), The Fiddler of Driskill Hill (LSU Press 2013), and Outside the Gates of Eden (Measure Press, 2023). In the spring of 2025, Texas Review Press will publish "Time Will Tell: Collected Poems/ David Middleton." “Pickets” first appeared in the September 2023 issue of Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture. “Porches” and Section iv of The Dwelling Place first appeared in the Alabama Literary Review. All three poems have been lightly edited for this posting and will be included in "Time Will Tell."