The spirits of the Romans and Ghengis Khan

all now sleep beneath a parchment of mud;

all fallen, submerged and forgotten.

Our souls in time will be drowned

into the canvas on which we stand.

But this mud is special mud,

the mud beside the road to Stalingrad.

This is not ordinary mud.

This mud gave the allies time to think,

to plan, and slowed the blitzkrieg in its track.

This mud contains the bone and blood

of the daughters and sons of Stalingrad.

Who with rifles, bloody fists and rocks

brushed a masterpiece of free will and defiance

using up the colors of their life to stand like Atlas.

Their spirit smote awe struck the Nazi army,

and brought halt to tanks and soldiers of the enemy.

Do not look puzzled when unnoticed

I remove mud from beside the road to Stalingrad

to cradle through Berlin across an ocean;

to take the mud to the other side of the world;

to place the dirt in a flower pot in Rhode Island,

where I’ll grow forget-me-nots that echo a bouquet

of gunshots from a battle far away.        

I suppose in time soldiers and scribblers

along with guns and words all drowned

into the canvas on which they stand.

Their romantic words about flowers

and memories all covered by mud’s parchment.

But the sons and daughters of Stalingrad

brushed with their lives the world.

 

Copyright © 2009, by Charles N. Guthrie