REQUIEM FOR GENERAL WALKER

REQUIEM FOR WALKER


The gates to the old cemetery
Were padlocked shut,
With a rusted chain
So I found a corner, in the shade,
Where the wall was low,
And went over the top.

The ground was uneven, pocked with holes,
Covered with thorny vines hacked
Roughly back.
The tombs are crumbling stone and,
Near the middle,
Is a slab contained by a
White iron fence.

On it is his name, letters cracked and gone,
William Walker.
The grey eyes lie below,
Returned to earth.

Over, past crooked crosses,
You can see, The blue Bay of Trujillo,
Where on 12 September 1860,
The man of destiny from Tennessee,
Stood silent in the face,
Of the firing squad.

I wonder if he heard the crash
Of the waves behind him,
Before that of the rifles.
If he looked at the jungle covered hills,
And thought,
It might as well be here.

His nearest neighbor is,
a Jose Nunez who died 22
Years later. It is a lonely place here,
Amongst the thorns, overlooking the sea, a long way,
From Tennessee, and I stay with him a while.