Mutatis Mutandis - Invoice No. 5: Let Us Cross Over the River
Here Stonewall Jackson looked up from his Bible
And told my father's father's father to go scout
The Yankees' flank for windfall skirmishers.
Any poor fool can do an epic poem.
There's nothing to it.
Take your people's lore —
Thick packs of lies, the old horse-soldier's drool —
And make a tone poem of a totem pole.
Veteran virgin home from many balls,
Vain chivalry of cavalry, knights' moves
Avuncular, conservative, but bold,
All a dim dance card from a long-dead levee
Or charivari continued at the jail.
I'll tell one tale, a proper Southern myth:
Jackson, exhaling like a Samurai
His seventeen classic syllables, died
On May 10th, 1863, younger
Than Poe was when he died, already forty.
And told my father's father's father to go scout
The Yankees' flank for windfall skirmishers.
Any poor fool can do an epic poem.
There's nothing to it.
Take your people's lore —
Thick packs of lies, the old horse-soldier's drool —
And make a tone poem of a totem pole.
Veteran virgin home from many balls,
Vain chivalry of cavalry, knights' moves
Avuncular, conservative, but bold,
All a dim dance card from a long-dead levee
Or charivari continued at the jail.
I'll tell one tale, a proper Southern myth:
Jackson, exhaling like a Samurai
His seventeen classic syllables, died
On May 10th, 1863, younger
Than Poe was when he died, already forty.
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