In my town square
250 gather in a Southern chill
to chant that war is not the answer.

They speak out to the statues and the few brave wrens.

In the state capitol
troops mass for the rebel flag,
for the old dead and grassed over battlefields.

The last time war made me this afraid

I was drinking Earl Grey tea

in Mary’s kitchen

from Belleek cups with matching saucers.

Giving up Peets coffee and network news

for the duration.

Living one town over from Berkeley

in an overgrown rental,

cracked window out to

a shuttered street

where the old ones played Sinatra

and televisions flickered Sesame Street

til the men came home.

Along the Appalachian foothills highway

sallow leaves drift.

On the median, banks of yellow flowers

late in the season.

Today flags and bunting will drape the chain link

fences and cracked windows.

The red Jesus Heals fliers will litter the downtown streets,

like everyday, like the smell of ash in alleys.

Somehow I believe the day’s dead would prefer wild

September poppies from Southern red clay.

Not a patriot’s memorial of frayed cloth,

but a blaze of living memories.

The plants we cannot protect will be hurt the most,
the Master Gardener warned.

Saucer magnolias, Japanese magnolias.
Their buds brown mush, blooms stillborn.

Too high up to cover with black plastic,
too exposed.

The first to feel the icy blast,
the late March freeze that comes up
despite the calendar and leaves before dawn.

The babies, the small ones
we can keep at home,
tucked in their light wool spring blankets

Away from King George Street
where the young man grins
and chews spearmint gum
before the suicide bomb.

We cannot protect the lingering teenagers
blooming on the corner,
the shopkeepers,
the widows gone to market,
or the messengers.

They stand frozen on the afternoon pavement
like purple petals on bare branches,
lost in the season.