For the Fallen

For everything there is a season,
And a time for every matter under heaven:
                                                                                             Ecclesiastes 3:1

Stopping at the Memorial Forest Shrine For the War Dead

Last evening, on my husband’s fiftieth birthday,
    we intruded on the quiet reclining
       and green flags of the shuddering grass
          while strolling over the named bricks of the dead

like mute stones in a river bed
    with no water singing or relieving
       the uneasy silence
           cupping a cardinal’s song 

my daughters’ laughing, jumping--
    making a game out of the ledges
        while following the alliterations of the dead 
            through the shafts of dust unsettling

below the huddled murmuring
    of leaves lifting sideways
        from the grove of presidents
            standing on the darkening edge.