Jordan A. Leturgez

Not in the trumpet's brazen cry,
Nor crowns that catch the noon,
But in the hand held out to lift
A stranger through the gloom.

It lives where quiet courage keeps
Its promise, step by step;
Where kindness asks for no applause,
And grief is gently met.

The years may dim the marble names,
The banners fade from view;
But what we give to one another
Endures, and carries through.

The board stands still beneath the light,
a quiet dare of grain and pine;
I raise my hand, prepare to fight
the fear that says the strength is mine.

One breath, one shout, one sudden crack--
the world divides beneath the blow.
The splinters never strike me back,
but pain has ways a board won't know.

For wood is kind: it breaks, it yields,
it keeps no score, it bears no scars.
The hardest battles wait in fields
where hearts can answer who we are.

So train the fist, but guard the heart;
let courage learn what force can't prove.
A board may break beneath your art--
the living do not have to move.

At the edge of the field, the grasses  lean outward, listening  for footsteps that never arrive.

A fence holds the evening  in a trembling line--  wood, wire, shadow, sky.

Inside, the house gathers its windows,  each one a small, bright thought  refusing to wander.

Outside, the dark keeps moving,  measuring the world  with its patient, soundless hand.

I walk the boundary slowly,  touching each post  as if counting what remains.

Beyond the last stone,  there is no map--  only distance becoming night.

And still the circle widens,  not by breaking,  but by learning where to end.

Morning slips in, sparkling bright,
Polishes rooftops with threads of light.
The windows yawn, the sidewalks gleam,
The whole wide world steps from a dream.

A breeze runs laughing through the trees,
Washing the clouds and stirring leaves.
The river hums a silver refrain,
While sunlight rinses the night away.

Fresh shoes tapping, clean hearts awake,
New little promises ready to make.
Each breath feels clear, each moment keen--
A day unfolds, so fresh, so clean.

Beneath the lamps, the maps lie still,
their rivers blue, their borders red;
a dozen hands command the hill,
while somewhere far, the sleepless tread.

The radios breathe in broken code,
the clocks divide the dark by two;
each brass pin bears a stranger's load,
each silence hides what men must do.

No thunder enters through the door--
only a cup, a chair, a name.
The war is measured on the floor
in distances too small for flame.

Outside, the rain begins to fall,
soft as a hand upon the glass;
inside, they lean above it all
and move the pieces as they pass.

At dawn, the room will lose its power,
the maps be rolled, the lights grow thin;
but somewhere, at that very hour,
the first command will settle in.