Beginning with a Line from Ernie
Pyle
--- from The Indiana Series
And
yet you know. Always in your heart…
You
have never really left.
When
Ernie Pyle walked the high tide line
Of Omaha
Beach the morning after D-Day,
Of all
that he stepped over what he remembered most
Were the
cartons of soggy cigarettes, stationary,
French phrase books, sewing kits, snap shots,
Playing cards, metal pocket mirrors,
A tennis
racket still clamped in its rack,
A broken
banjo.
Sea
birds circled
What history
brings.
What history
leaves behind.
Matthew Graham is the current Indiana State Poet Laureate.