50+ Lifestyles

A Pause for Poetry

By Gary Heath
Poet in Residence for 50+ Lifestyles.

Gettysburg

The air is hot in this rain of ordnance,
Metallic taste acrid in our mouths.
Ferrous screams reflex our nerves in
Our serried ranks, amid fumes of
Gun powder. We blanch, we forge
On into the iron and lead storm,
Through hellish pain and lifeless
Torsos and limbs. We march on into
The metal rain, courage given pause
By fear, the teeming rain racks us, no
Quarter given, no quarter asked, we
Fight on.

Iowa

I rose amid tall bluestem, from this
Land, in a green wind. I rose from
This prairie, longing to be. The wind
Blew over blue bergamot, resplendent
Goldenrod, sighing my name, susurrus
Whispering prophecy of what I would
Be on this prairie. I beckoned many to
Journey to me onto my hard forbidding
Sod, yet so fertile if they could cut it,
And cut they did, with a determined
Plow. I grew farms, hamlets, and towns
From my rich soil, and in 1846, I took
The name Iowa.