Statue of a Soldier

© 2011 Donald Lee Pardue, Flickr | CC-BY | via Wylio


I don’t know much

When I sit among the statues,

Hold my voice just as they do,

With a poise that can’t be touched.

What can I say

To the bronze that stand in silence?

Yet their eyes reveal a guidance

That belonged to yesterday.

 

Evening grows cold.

At once, your shadow brushes mine—

Your war-scarred past; my perfect life,

And all the stories you never told.

 

Tell me to stay.

Teach me love and pain and meaning—

Things not stored in rooms of reading—

So I can live the life you gave.

I cannot fill

The height and width of your shadow;

I promise I’ll be back, though,

To stand with you again.

Copyright © 2015 by Ashley Williams