Our Man in Europe, dave delacroix... Waitin on da Robert E. Lee
dedicato. Nick Nolte.
Mattie was walkin, doin MOST of da talkin, twistin her BOUFE left right and centre. I was mostly BEAN-POLE, lookin serious, clasping my last chance Picket carriage ticket home, Greensboro, Carolina. Ol Juba. One horse carriage. Come by bout this time. Nobody EVER told me we were North or South, or Middlin War- Republic, Yankees on the horizon. I did not care NONE! Miss Mattie won my heart and, presently, by all accounts, we woz Courting, S-am I-m proud. Age 19!
SUDDEN!!! MUSKETS! Like rain under a tree. Cows, goats, everything SCATTERED.. then the rush of UNIFORMS. Any thing MOVED got shot or cut down. Mattie, shot through the heart fell down upon me. Her body warmth and Spirit blended into Me.
Come dawn the Battle, skirmish, WAR had moved along. Gathered unto the Lord, with bare hands I dug Mattie-s resting place. SHE didn't have to die! WHY did she have to die! I was a long time Comin, thinkin, likely confused. My love had gone. And maybe a day or two, wanderin thru woods, brush, not knowing... when I came upon two lilly white girls, Southern Ladies, not 15 years old, and I knelt in all sadness with them. They had just buried a Yankee Soldiers Soul.
Hummin started. Don-t know where from when. WE were just three. Soldiers appeared. Doctors, wounded men on carriages. Some say a Colonel! Hummin. Gather Round boys! Waitin on da Robert E. Lee. And torn men hummin. Campfires. Tents. Billy-cans. A gatherin for my sweet Mattie.
c.2020, davedelacroix.
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