So sleep. So dull occlusion under dirt.
So darkness broken only by a glint
of mica. And the spirit burrower in us

shrinks in. Until that afternoon he sees
trembling tent flaps of the hospital
open to autumn in the capital.

The sharpened air, and shouts, and chains of clouds
streaming above a cornice, could be gifts
of convalescence: such fine clarities.

Though he will soon bestride a horse again.
Soon join the needed, surgical, slow slice of
steel through the burning Wilderness toward Richmond.

And still the whitebeard male nurse writes to him:
I see the merge of me with you. I see
our clutch on clutch, our sinew under skin

as tensile and resilient as the roots
of fountain grass. I hope you will at last
write back to me. And hope our bond upon

your quick return will carry each of us
together and apart, as our same nation
stands whole and new. But I am not fool.