162 Years Between Now and Then
Nick Graham

On the solstice
The clover
Lush and green
Vibrated a little
In the contemporary music
Scene

Copper and zinc
lessons
And valves
All coincided
In the warm evening air, in
Ourselves

Pairs of epaulettes
Tasseled,
aslant
Deputized
The troupe into a military
Band

It must have been thus
When the farmer
The tanner
Synchronized
The earnestness of the many under one
Banner

They snapped his neck
They knew
They must
What subsided
Was the man but not what was
Just

It lived on
To be fought
For and against
Seldom sated—
That ire for the righteous— then or now
Or hence

On the solstice
The clover
Lush and green
Vibrated a little
In the contemporary music
Scene