Gray Smoke

Thin wisps like smoke that flee from the fire,

a fog late at night, broken down but higher,

fly past the full face of a moon I desire.

Deep in this night two bodies aspire
- Venus and Diana -

both searching the earth for the plausible

fire.

But between we three, an army expires -

tis the shades of Robert E. Lee

and the troops we admire -

thin wisps of gray smoke drawn to the fire.

They swirl down in pills,

from deep darkened hills,

into fate which was badly begotten.

This mass, this fume, is all that now looms

of an army that has never forgotten.

© Marvin Welborn, 2011

Robert E. Lee; photo by Tony Russell