Washington
Crossed the Delaware in the dead of winter
Icy, churning water
Cloaks holed, hands riddled with
Fear
Boys too young to know a lady’s kiss
The black night covering the pass of
Cannon over farmland
Hope of revolution hanging
In the balance of a fatal morning
Daylight creeping over sleeping tents
The drunken celebration of a Christmas night
Dulling the wits of the crack-troop Hessians
Half-clad in their beds
Murdered without warning
A motley fusillade of rag-tag musket
Bewigged officers scrambling for their pistols
Screaming for order out of the chaotic blast
-of Liberty-
The plunge of a pike from a shopkeeper’s hand
An American sword
Stabbed with defiance
In American soil
Refusing to be bloodied
With American dreams.
(Previously published in The Odeum, Jan.2002)
Laurence Overmire
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/trenton-1776/
