When Hurricanes Strike…Write

Hurricane Sandy unleashed her might and fury on the Northeast last night. My family and I spent hours in the dark, listening to winds rage and trees fall. Thanks be to God, our home wasn’t damaged and our power was restored this afternoon. Neighbors and friends were not as lucky.

As Sandy swallowed us and all, I picked up a pen and wrote a poem. A night of nature’s ferocity compelled me to think of man’s ferocity. I wrote of the the First Battle of Bull Run. In this poem, my developing manuscript’s title character, Lt. Kendal Everly, enters the battle. A teacher, Everly inadvertently leads some of his students into the fray.

Thunk and Thud

Like a spear’s tip,
I pierced the fray.
My students, my boys,

chained their resolve to mine:
together, our voices twisted
into one horrid cacophony,

a chorus greater than hell’s
demon song. My sword, drawn
and splitting the air before me,

caught the sun, blazed
like a blade aflame.
And that heart, that thunk

and thud, beat against my brain.
Louder now: so maddening loud.

Would he had lived…

Image via Wikipedia

On this date in 1824, Stonewall Jackson was born. He died on May 10, 1863. Confederate pickets accidentally shot him at the Battle of Chancellorsville on May 2, 1863; the general survived with the loss of an arm to amputation. However, he died of complications of pneumonia eight days later. I believe that had the general survived, the outcome of the War could have been, would have been, different, to say the least.

The doctor who amputated Jackson’s left arm and attended to him during his final moments, Dr. Hunter McQuire, wrote in his journals the following.

“A few moments before he (Jackson)died he cried out in his delirium, “Order A.P. Hill to prepare for action! Pass the infantry to the front rapidly! Tell Major Hawks”—then stopped, leaving the sentence unfinished. Presently a smile of ineffable sweetness spread itself over his pale face, and he said quietly, and with an expression, as if of relief, “Let us cross over the river, and rest under the shade of the trees.”"

Here’s a poem that I’ve posted here before, but I felt it appropriate to share once again.

Happy birthday, Stonewall.

Stonewall Jackson at Manassas: July 21, 1861

That beard hangs
from his chin
like an anvil.

Ain’t no lie.
Yankee bullets
veer `round his head
so not to smack
against his face.

We should just point
him toward Washington
and shackle up behind
like a chain of geese.

I swear we’d rename
this country Virginia
before it’s cold
enough to harden
your nipples.