For My Great Grandparents

I wonder if it was sunny that Illinois August day
that Joseph and Sarah rode over to Carlinville
in a borrowed wagon. Wearing the county's rural dust
on their finest, they wed on the old courthouse steps,
vowing love and honor til death would part them.
But Lincoln's call for volunteers split them first
when Joseph pledged himself the next day to another
righteous cause. I read of his telling of three years
of double quick marches through places like Parker's Crossroads
and Nashville, wondering if he sometimes reached
for the night's warmth of his 17 year-old bride only to wake
and find his old blue coat frozen to him. But he did come home,
staying death for a time, to produce much fruit. I look
at their portraits on my wall, their youth now cloaked
in time-worn faces, and wonder if, on this particular day
that their images were burned onto browned paper, their faith
open in Sarah's hands, they were thinking
about that bright summer day on the courthouse steps
when these young lovers kissed, knowing that cruel times
would arrive with a troop wagon. I wonder if they smiled
after the flash, knowing nothing really changes for sweethearts
despite better days and worse.

June 2006