OLD FORT DAVIS

A row of pillared houses
faces the parade ground.
A forgotten regiment, left standing
at attention, it stares and crumbles
into the August heat.
Silence drifts across the camp.
Wind ruffles sparse grass.
The creviced mountain wall, backdrop
to everything, is bent
on listening . . .

. . . and from all around it comes,
the sound-
hoofs chipping on sand,
wheeled cannon creaking, shrill
melodies of fifes,
vibration of cornets in air
dry as flour, snare drums 
in cadence, commands flung like gravel
in the wind.  All here 
now, the sound of it,
just the sound,
and this wind, touching 
the grass.


			Lucille Murphy