Letter Home

 
My dearest mother,
It is with a heavy heart and deepest sorrow
that I finally put pen to paper
to inscribe my thoughts to you.
I have been made aware of both
your prosperity and your current misfortune,
having recently received a posting
from my acquaintance, Mr. Johansen.

I asked that he might inquire after you
as he was traveling to Florida,
coursing through the environs of Atlanta
on his planned excursion.  
He agreed to pause and find
his way to Decatur to make
such inquiries on my behalf.

Mother,
how do I beg for forgiveness
when I have so wounded those dearest to me?  
Long have I postponed this correspondence,
making various attempts,
but with Father’s letter’s recriminations
still stinging my heart, I
 could not bring myself
to bridge the canyons of time
and distance between us.

How can I explain the exuberance of youth
that, with the trumpets of battles’ glory
singing me their anthems, would,
over my parents’ universal objections
in his sixteenth year, pursue
the “great cause” with Lee
and his armies of Northern Virginia?  

How do I explain a child playing soldier,
whose head was filled
with Caesar and Hannibal,
with Octavian and Philippi,
with the Spartans and Thermopylae,
being shown the truest nature
of Christian brothers’ mechanized brutality
to Christian brother?

How do I explain the scarlet fields
raised in crops of arms and legs
and broken bodies laid in long strip graves
covered in lye?
Of closest confidants exploded
into a fine red mists?
How still, that in the midst
of this fiery Hades brought to earth,
at Antietam, at Gettysburg, at Cold Harbor,
that in this devil’s torment,
how I found my vocation?

How I discovered my own satanic nature,
how I could destroy a man’s life
in the most violent of fashions
and feel nothing but the thrilling
victory of accomplishment of the task?

When I received Father’s letter in reply
to my consternation over this discovery,
his disavowing my person,
stating I no longer held place in the family,
but stating as well that
even my memory
would not be tolerated.
How do I explain the breaking heart
of one of Jesus’s lost?  

I swore in that very moment
that I would never again place
the accursed red clay dust
of Georgia under my feet.  
That if I were to live
through the infernal conflagration,
I would make my way in the West.  
And so I did, and so I have.

I have made my fortunes
by employment of Mister Colt’s revolvers
and Mister Henry’s rifles.
My company now consisting
of men of low character:
drunkards, brigands, whoremongers,
scallywags, who would shoot
their boon companions in the back
for another gold dollar
or folding federal bills.  

I have, at times, found worthy men
as I have traveled.
Gentlemen from good families,
with high aspirations,
and good Christian character,
all who served to remind me
of better days among the shade-trees
on the banks of my dear Chattahoochee,
with you and the estranged family.

But my pistols’ reports
are dearer to me now,
and the pay I receive
for riding men down,
for the bringing to violent ends,
violent disputes
of concerns that are mine only
because the mean gold they supply.

My dearest mother,
please look past my misspent life
and the nature of how
these fortunes came to me,
take the money I am sending.
I pray that you would use it
to restore the family
as you see most fit.  
I fear this will be
my last letter to you
and your last knowledge of me.

I would ask no favors or considerations,
for my life and livelihood deserve
none of polite society.  
But that if you bring me to mind,
I would ask you think of me
as your towheaded boy rushing
home from school that you might
continue his education
with your instruction on the harpsichord.
Those moments that seemed
to give you such pleasure.

Your loving son, Josiah
Wyoming Territory,
near to Cheyanne,
September 1875

(From the "Stuck in the wrong era" competition)