My First Whitman Inspired Work

The canvas flaps heavily in the rippling breeze,
A shading guard over those pulled from the front,
So that the sun may not beat down oppressively
The time and wretched date of their torment.

I enter the tent with film plates grasped in shaking hands,
Here to grant them whatever grace may be had.

In the corner lies a stack of limbs savaged by the saw,
Blackened fingers attesting to the arms they held
When the trump sounded forth for the Republic
And the shrill Rebel cry answered.

I kneel at the cot of young man my age,
His glazed old eyes frantic for home.

Another cot holds a sucking wound draining the
Life blood of the man who plays host to it.
Scarlet, it trickles down into the dust hard won at the price
Of these souvenirs of Democracy.