Volunteers

They came through in the spring

with cornets and a speech.

"Home before the leaves turn,"

they promised from the cart.

They flattered all the mothers

and sized the sons like colts.

Volunteers —

that's what the poster called them.

The poster and the hunger

did the volunteering.

The fields came in without them.

Old men took the scythes up.

Then, one by one, the telegrams,

each shorter than a psalm.

Volunteers —

the word does heavy lifting.

It lifted them from the lanes

and lowered them abroad.

"Be proud," they told her, "wave,"

the day they led him out.

She was. She did. It doesn't

bring the proud boys back.

Volunteers —

the plaque was up by winter,

the lettering in gold,

and not one word for hunger,

and nothing signed by shame.