Hunting Civil War Relics at Nimblewill Creek
James Dickey

As he moves the mine detector
A few inches over the ground,
Making it vitally float
Among the ferns and weeds,
I come into this war
Slowly, with my one brother,
Watching his face grow deep
Between the earphones,
For I can tell
If we enter the buried battle
Of Nimblewill
Only by his expression.

Softly he wanders, parting
The grass with a dreaming hand.
No dead cry yet takes root
In his clapped ears
Or can be seen in his smile.
But underfoot I feel
The dead regroup,
The burst metals all in place,
The battle lines be drawn
Anew to include us
In Nimblewill,
And I carry the shovel and pick
More as if they were
Bright weapons that I bore.
A bird’s cry breaks
In two, and into three parts.
We cross the creek; the cry
Shifts into another,
Nearer, bird, and is
Like the shout of a shadow–
Lived-with, appallingly close–
Or the soul, pronouncing
“Nimblewill”:
Three tones; your being changes.

We climb the bank;
A faint light glows
On my brother’s mouth.
I listen, as two birds fight
For a single voice, but he
Must be hearing the grave,
In pieces, all singing
To his calmped head,
For he smiles as if
He rose from the dead within
Green Nimblewill
And stood in his grandson’s shape.

from: Dickey, James. “Hunting Civil War Relics at Nimblewill Creek,” The Columbia Book of Civil War Poetry. Ed. Richard Marius and Keith Frome. New York: Columbia University Press, 1994. page 525.

Jon and I are heading off for a weekend of research at the 145th Gettysburg reenactment. Right now I am really strongly considering writing my MA thesis on Civil War reenactments. Mostly I want to ask questions about how history is made relevant to new/successive generations. Of course, I can’t even remember the last time I actually saw a reenactment (on vacation with my VA grandparents when I was 10, maybe 11). Hence this weekend’s trip and today’s poem.

I’ll post photos here Monday.