After the moon, after the brides gone, after time

After Veteran's Day, 2003

I sit beside the pool where the boys played.
They played at being men, defending
Women and Faith.

The pool is filled with the shadow of its memories,
Which resemble rotting straw and
Leaves. It is not odd in autumn to be umber,
Barren, grisly by association and dead in fact.

Nothing survives of the noise we made.
Nothing survives of the shatter we visited
upon the sky's reflection.

I sit beside the pool where the boys played.
Other boys' voices under the hill
Approach.
There are women, and faiths yet.

The faiths change.
Only the women were worth it in the end, and
Now they play too.
Now they rake up the dry memories for burning
When the green has been spent, and the
Names are frozen in thier long black ice.

The pool is lovely in the sudden twilight of autumn,
A steep light, each star and wren
Falls off it
Into the pool, without
Ripples.