Songs

They marched through the streets
Of these Northern towns
And their winding-sheets
And their hospital gowns
Are not all we remember of these
marching men
Because their stories get told again
and again.

From these Northern towns
They marched through the streets
And the terrible sounds
Of advances, retreats
Are not all we remember of these
innocent boys:
Stories rebuild just what wartime destroys.

And a photograph is a kind of map;
A map of where we’ve been, where we heard
That story lifting up the tentflap
Of history, that story that hinged on a word
From a 100 year old woman, a 95 year
old man
That turns and returns to where
stories began.

They marched through the light
In these Northern places
To a bomb-blasted night
And the fear on their faces
We should remember as the years slowly pass;
Stories as brittle as glass
Stories as brittle as glass...