North Dock, West Point
for the heroes of the Civil War and World War Two
O North Dock in dusk-like silence, bathed
In Spring on the Hudson! The lowered sun
Shines still and tinges your scant pier
As if in a misdeed of happiness.
O Liberty's wharf and main to come, stirred
By history's shades and rebellions
Through which we now see besieging birds
Rise and fall in festive shirttail-feathers,
Wheeling in the breeze above the hills
Where glory in profusion spills.
For us the corporeal is fertile
And history's world as if in the depth
Of a mirror appears innermost in hearts
Where heroes we muse upon lie blest.
But here on this dock stirs Eisenhower with
Patton; MacArthur with Grant and Sherman;
Where the distances between them are gone
And West Point gleams with Bethlehem.
by James Wm. Chichetto
... who is a freelance poet, with eight books of verse to his
credit, and works appearing in The Native American Poetry
Anthology, The First Abbey Wood Anthology, The
Boston Globe, The Boston Phoenix,
The Colorado Review, Gargoyle,
The Manhattan Review, Poem,
The Paterson Review. He is related to combat
veterans of the Korean War and World War Two; and teaches at
Stonehill College, Holy Cross.