FAWM 2023 #8: Some Buried Caesar

Kicks off from a true story: my wife and I took a hike during this FAWM up along the Rappahannock River. We live in Fredericksburg, Virginia, where almost every location was part of a Civil War battlefield and a potential burying ground. Many of the fallen from both sides were found and reburied in the big cemeteries created after the war. This grave, however, was left alongside the river with no identification of its occupant.

Title from Fitzgerald's 1859 translation of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam.

XIX

I sometimes think that never blows so red
The Rose as where some buried Caesar bled;
That every Hyacinth the Garden wears
Dropt in her Lap from some once lovely Head

Lyrics

Some buried Caesar lies here beside the trail,
His final encampent marked by a single stone.

Lazing in the river bend,
Drowsing in the shade of willow trees,
Standing where he lies, I shiver,
Did he die alone, maybe at peace?

Found the stone while we were walkin',
I stepped aside to let a cyclist zip by.
Of him, we began a' talkin',
Imaginin', and wonderin' just why,

Some buried Caesar lies here beside the trail,
His final encampent marked by a single stone.

Lilies in profusion adorn his grave,
Eager faces stretching to the sky.
Did some mother or some lover mourn his passing,
Demanding heaven, to know just why,

Some buried Caesar lies here beside the trail,
His final encampent marked by a single stone.

Don't know if he wore the gray or the blue,
Can't imagine it matters to him now,
What does it mean? What could redeem
All the blood drops spattered on this unhallowed ground?

Some buried Caesar lies here beside the trail,
His final encampent marked by a single stone.

Some buried Caesar lies here beside the trail.

© 2023 Tres Seaver