The Things We Buried by R.M. Engelhardt

In my father’s backyard

There is the evidence,

The remains

Scattered where a 1000 soldiers &

Old cars lay, rest and lie

Buried beneath the clay,

The dirt

The earth

Without a memory

And without a single headstone

To find their unmarked graves

For you see

It was much easier,

Much simpler

Back then

In those days

So many memories

To forget or to

Throw away

So many parts & pieces accidentally

Lost in the nostalgia

That is time.

All the soldiers now long

Forgotten and nameless

Who must have died

In some senseless and

Childish war. A battle where

The enemy remains unremembered

And unknown and there were

No survivors or victors left

Save one.

And so as I dig with my shovel and

Move the heavy stones I

Become the historian and

The aging archaeologist

With an old back and sore knees

Who no longer commands faceless souls

Into war or who gives orders in the fields

Of suburbia where the civilian cars

And trucks all mysteriously disappeared

And slowly sank

Into the mud. Where once

There was no true

Concept of a heaven, a hell

Or death

And off in the distance?

I listen but

Can hear no battle cries

No bombs exploding

But suddenly, as I come across

And old tin box I open it

And can see and hear

Maybe three or four dogs

Barking and wagging their tails

And a smiling,

Laughing child playing

Among them

A child

Who never understood why

But who buried all his dreams

Somehow knowing that one day

He would return again

Back to this place,

Back to his

Father’s backyard to

Find them all

And bring them

Back to life.

About R.M.  Engelhardt:

R.M. Engelhardt is an author, poet & writer whose work over the years has appeared in many journals & magazines such as Rusty Truck, Thunder Sandwich, Full of Crow, In Between Hangovers, Writers Resist, The Rye Whiskey Review and in many others. His new book of poetry is called Coffee Ass Blues & Other Poems published by Alien Buddha Press (2018). He is also the host of The Troy Poetry Mission, an open mic for poets located in Troy, New York.