#cockades

it is a pair of flowers.

over the fields they bloom, over the bodies;

too many wars to count, and graves are empty;

only a cenotaph along the road;

and only quicklime in the city.

they were so young that others thought they’d be immortal -

they knew that they would not grow old.

these men, who would have picked

another night of laws and arguments

over the slogans patched together from their names.

their cockades lie in the museum, pinned under glass

like insect wings. for us to scrutinize, to judge

as they have judged themselves and others,

without a template for a state, without a blueprint for the law,

with only brutal certainty demanded by the times.

they held the flowers on their chests, all through the war

they thought of hands that touched them last, and then -

phillippe was smiling when he said: put it aside, for now,

perhaps we’ll keep it for our son,

we can decide when i return. (he never did).

(and then) they found it stuck among the papers,

to the surprise of those who watched

the citizen saint-just go to his death,

some said he wore a flower on his lapel, while others disagreed,

they said they saw a cockade, from his wars.

the history is silent. only one thing is true:

whose hand he had been holding, all through the ride,

all through the night, and through the day.

the clutch of fingers; once they had pinned a cockade on his chest.

and months stretch long, and years run out too fast

and blend into each other, until all that's left

are flowers blooming in the fields

are cockades, sealed and catalogued

but blink and you will see them on their jackets,

as they are riding off to yet another war,

and turn around to wave goodbye,

and say: not all was lost. not all is lost.