Harleys at Gettysburg

Third of July, 2013, in a parking lot at the top of the ridge

where Chamberlain’s boys wheeled and Pickett’s boys fell,

I stood and saw down into Devil’s Den, on an old bridge

to the past, through visions of men not unlike myself.

The day was cluttered with crowds, whole busloads passed,

Japanese and a boy scout troop, with miscellaneous tourists

and far off, period players left over from the re-enactment cast

doffing woolen uniforms and walking off as they were dismissed.

I was reading a pamphlet on the statues that explained the meaning

of how the dead were depicted, the specific way their horses were posed

and how each gesture was a symbol. From the distance, a rumble, seeming

like a roaring cannonade, a thunderous firing of a volley of explosive ghosts.

They came up the road into the lot and surrounded us near the map.

From hogs they dismounted and crowded in, until we both moved back.

On their bikes and on their backs flew the colors of Dixie’s dead flag,

tattooed on their arms and hands, too, no rebel symbol did they lack.

I knew the story, but they saw it in a different way. The leader shouted loudly,

“This was the high water mark of the Confederacy, boys. Let’s drink to that.”

They all took out flasks and canteens, a few brandished bottles, proudly.

And they drank, and for a minute the party was all buzzed with Jack.

Then they got serious, and started to growl and snarl like beasts,

cursing and shouting and threatening to shoot up the place, though

I confess, I saw no guns. That doesn’t mean there wasn’t one, deep

in a pocket or saddle bag. It felt dangerous and threatening, I know.

Then they mounted their steeds like jihadi’s and throttled their thunder;

they screeched round the lot and burnt rubber, then roared off again,

their mufflers diminishing in the hot afternoon like the flags they rode under

growing smaller in the distance. Then came gray cumulonimbus, bringing rain.