1
          Here at home

nothing changes. Middle-aged men
          send you men to war.
Old men wake up before dawn
          waiting for the light to come
as they gaze from a window
          at oak trees
arriving without haste out of the darkness,
          tears in our eyes,
not that they help.

2
          “Maybe I should go to the Civil War cemetery and write a poem,”

I say. “Sounds like a really bad poem,” you say.
           I sit in the lobby of the Hampton Inn instead
and watch TV images from Thailand,
           where the living hang on to palm trees
just above the raging flood
           for as long as they can.