Snow On Round Tops

I remember now.

This is one of the stories he told me, and it's about war, and scar-calamity, and the healing after death. It’s about a time afterward, when things came to reveal how we were, defined who we are, and molded us in the way we would yet become. There are portrait paths to the places he came to know, and the witnessing of events through the endurance of suffering; all revelations proclaimed in moments of naked realization. He said there was a tangled bond tying all these things together, a shattered chain of broken links, and two inseparable realities; happenstance and utter determination. He said, after all, scattered lives hope for a happy ending. He told me so. He said this story unfolds in one place that, above all else, proves definition of character and passion; a place of field and outcrop, of ridge and mountaintop, spreading open like a book of soulful tales penned in the blood of captured souls. It’s a painting of life stroked with pastels of leafy wood and golden wheat to create an image textured in bloody boulders of courage and futility. It’s a testament to life that was, and is, and will always exist in the fragile, tenuous thing he called the heart. It was here, he said, that conflict waged a battle for cause, and as the earth exploded, men and horses fell beneath a rain of white-hot metal shards. In the midst of it all, a nearby town endured hell almighty, suffering the loss of innocence in the crossfire, and a stumbling society took shaky steps to find footing. It was here that he came to know the face of fate.

I remember now.

Irony wafts on billows of time like a dirge of continuation; seasons blend, and life goes on in spite of horror. Spring buds appear on slender branch, and, in the shadow, tender blades break the soil. Beyond branch’s outstretched reach, cloud fluff floats lazy on breaths of cool, moist air, and fresh rains wash the land, cleanse the spirit, and none are forgotten, for spring carries memory of why they fell. Come summer, a brilliant sun, woods thickened to impassable. Hot, lazy days hint of deeper truth, give way to twilight, when skies of crimson and ochre fold into deepest night, and ghosts walk the forest with hollow eyes turned upward to gaze at dazzling pinpoints of starlight. Summer passes, and none will forget their existence. When summer tires, autumn trees blaze with glory, seeming afire with resplendent color; hardened ground, withered stalks, brown, crispy leaves crunch beneath the foot, and plant and beast, sky and land yearn to go dormant. Let them sleep, and let them be aware of their slumber. Comes a fierce winter, cold, harsh, and the land rolls white, blanketed in blinding purity that pains the eye. Pristine is the hue of the soul, yet, beneath the cover of snow lie broken bodies and shattered bones that cry valor in the face of doom. It is theirs we remember, and winter scours with reality, the reminder that they fell.

I remember now.

Uncle brought me here before he died. He said this was my place; I was supposed to be here, he said, and coming back to hallowed ground something I was meant to do. It didn’t make any sense; I was too young to know what hallowed ground was, or what it meant to be there again, because that visit was my first. I really wanted to understand him, but sometimes it was hard. He was always like that, different, and knew most everyone considered him an odd sort, but he always treated me like a grown-up. He seemed to come from somewhere else, another place, another time, but it didn’t matter. He had a peculiar name, too, an old name, the remnant of something long passed, and just leave it to him to give people reason to wonder. Once, during a family gathering, in the midst of teasing, he stood defiant ground, proclaiming belief in all those things. It wasn’t the first time I’d heard him say that, but I can't deny the childbirth awakening of personal pride. He saw it in me on that day, and began to share things like that with me many times, always in private, and from then on, whatever he talked about, it became easier for the little boy to separate fiction from fact. I just didn’t know why, but I never, ever doubted him.

Uncle loved to tell stories; imagination seemed more important than anything else. Lineage and legacy, dreams and desires, and I think the thing he wanted most was for me to listen. The tales were preposterous, grand illusions to everyone except me, and I relished every word, no matter how outrageous it seemed. I lived for his visits, counting the days when I would have him all to myself.

“Tell me a story, Uncle.” All I had to do was ask, and those tired, graying eyes would come to life, and that raspy voice would weave tapestry.

“Tell me a story.” In an instant he was young again, like me.

“Tell me a story.” His word was gospel, and he was my hero, my teacher, my best friend.

He brought me here, where we stood atop this rocky spire, behind us an old, weathered monument, and gazed down across the slope to the den of the devil. He trembled that day, and I did, too, because I felt what he felt. Being there was like a dream, a waking dream in which we could see, hear, and feel the onslaught that played below many years before. A slight breeze touched my hair, and after a long while of silence, he said, “Come, Nephew. Follow me.” I remember no need to say how sorry it made me to leave the hilltop.

We trekked down a beaten slope, crossed a narrow road to a path into the wood; alongside, a craggy rock wall slithered through the brush in low, sinewy profile; it was piled with purpose, determination, and had been there a long time. There was a small monument jutting from the ground, something etched into the top, a flag planted at the base, and we paused, for no other reason it seemed, than for Uncle to gather courage. He was deep in thought, barely gave the marker a glance, and I heard a deep sigh, and watched as he reached down and plucked a stone from that low wall. He turned with a smile, and the pebble rolled from his hand into the palm of mine, and he told me I had to come back when the time was right, and I can’t explain that I knew what he meant. He said that the stone wasn’t mine to keep, nor did it belong to me; I was merely a caretaker. I know now that he was telling me that the thing he offered was of greater value than a little stone; what was now mine was the responsibility to return it to its rightful place.

He motioned down the hill, and led off into the thick, and I heard him say it was just a little further. When he stopped after only ten feet, the footing was steep, and I clutched a slender branch to keep from sliding. Uncle’s gaze was far ahead into nothing that I could see, like a memory-filled past, and he stayed frozen in place for a long time. I wondered what to say, if anything, his eyes seemed to fill with the shadow of loss, and he lowered his gaze to the ground at his feet, and he whispered soft, trancelike, but I heard it clearly.

“I am so sorry, my Emily Jayne.”

A hard swallow, and I didn’t make a sound, but he remembered I was there, and with a quivering, bony finger, pointed to a bare spot of soil.

“This is where I fell.”

His voice was gentle, sad, and he turned with a look that bored right inside of me, and, slowly, the shaky aim of finger found my face, and his voice turned ghostly.

“This is where you fell, my young namesake.”

Somehow, at that moment, at the becoming age of thirteen, the way I looked at myself was altered, the awareness of self being awakened, and I was changed from the child.

Snow falls deeply upon Little Round Top, at a place called Gettysburg.

I remember now.

Tell me a story.

indydavid
11/05/2009