The dysfunction
of my imagination
is that when
I visit places
like Fort Pillow
in Tennessee
on the Mississippi
or Sand Creek
in southeast Colorado
I see pools
of blood
adjacent to
motionless bodies
as if the ground
by soaking up
that century
old carnage
took on
the human trauma
and no amount
of thunder
and rain
splashing the grass
and trees
washes the stain
out of our
atrocities.
copyright © 2021 Kenneth P. Gurney
postscript
Wikipedia on Fort Pillow massacre. Tennessee’s Fort Pillow Historical State Park.
Umflop 