Ground

                        (2011, watching the last veterans visit Normandy)

Always a residue of time:   sand

Drifts incorrigibly along the beach

of Atlantic tides we lived.   Attempted to resist

No matter how tough the heel's scaled skin, an accidental

Crystal of sharp time

Lodges beneath our defenses, still enters with its impossible insomnia

of our moments together, you, and I,

Joined by veteran grass

After spring rains, when the hardy mint invades

Overwhelmingly

Crushed in blood's Bourbon.

Irreverent, the pyramids of evergreens survive.

This bush I planted last year studs my hands

            in a semicircular garden of unanticipated thorns.

I bought it knowing nothing of nature's barricades

            or the barricades of memory in the residence of monuments:

Yards of loyalty, these white stones.

It doesn't make any difference

If it is, or was, a cross

Or a lonely star,

            or a now abstract design.

Laura Manuelidis is a physician/scientist who has investigated the shape of chromosomes and the causes of dementia. She has published poetry in various journals, including The Nation, Connecticut Review, Oxford Poetry, Innisfree Poetry, and Reflections (Yale journal), has been nominated twice for a Pushcart prize, and has read in European and American universities and other venues. Her book of poems, Out of Order, is available online; additional links (and readings with music by P. Jordan) are at: http://info.med.yale.edu/neurosci/faculty/manuelidis_poetry.html.